


The Final Season: Home is Where One Starts From

by Tibbins



Series: The Final Season [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Season/Series 15, Body Horror, Case Fic, Explicit Language, Fanart, Heavy Angst, Hell Trauma, Hopeful Ending, Horror, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Suicide, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Manipulation, Minor Rowena MacLeod/Sam Winchester, Multi, Post-Episode: s14e20 Moriah, Slow Burn, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:09:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 74,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25449631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tibbins/pseuds/Tibbins
Summary: Alternate Season 15. Grieving the loss of Jack, Team Free Will is splintering. Cas needs time to process, leaving the Winchesters to find the solution to the God problem. But when Chuck interferes with their home by dredging up the past, they, and Rowena, have to figure out a way to reclaim it while learning how hunting as they know it has been changed forever.Meanwhile, Cas finds a complicated case and a familiar face in Cope, Colorado. Can he find the thing turning this town on its head before it catches up to him?Title taken from a T. S. Eliot poem.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Rowena MacLeod/Sam Winchester
Series: The Final Season [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1843309
Comments: 20
Kudos: 60
Collections: Supernatural Canon BigBang 2020, The Destiel Fan Survey Favs Collection





	1. Things You See in a Graveyard

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> So this is a fic I have been working on for A WHILE, so when I saw openings for the Spncanonbang I just had to enter! Mostly to give me a deadline so I couldn't keep agonising over every tiny aspect (though I still did of course). This is my first ever bang, which is super exciting. The art pieces are by the wonderful love-nakamura! 
> 
> I really hope you enjoy this. I'm super proud of how it turned out.
> 
> Love Tibbins xx

They stood together back to back, shoulder to shoulder as they had done so many times before. Jack’s still smoking corpse was kicked aside by one of the approaching zombies, as though he meant nothing, as though he hadn’t been a son to all three of them just moments before. Cas let out a strange, hollow sound from behind Sam as Jack was trampled under dozens of pairs of dead feet, and Dean stepped forward to scoop up Chuck’s gun and shove it into his waistband before retreating back into position and out of his view. Sam’s makeshift iron spike trembled slightly in his hands as he watched the monsters advance, almost tentative, probably at least somewhat disorientated from their sudden resurrection. His shoulder hurt. It had been a stupid move to shoot Chuck with that damn gun; satisfying sure, and he hadn't been aiming for anything vital, but still, stupid. Now he was the weak link and judging from the appreciative sniffs and wild, manic grins on some of the creatures’ faces, they knew it too.

He’d fought with worse, _against_ worse, but they were desperately outnumbered and these creatures had been summoned by _God_. It was only a hunter’s instinct and assumption that led Sam to believe that these things were zombies of the like they were used to. He felt more than heard the hitch in Dean’s breathing, the only outward sign that his brother too was scared shitless.

At some invisible signal the monsters began to speed up, incensed into rage by who knew what. When the first wave crashed over them Sam lost track of time, lost track of where the others were or if they were even still alive. He was wrenched this way and that by the horde, their unspoken plan of staying together immediately thwarted. He heard a gun go off and desperately tried to twist around to get to his brother but it was impossible. He hoped Dean was giving warning shots rather than trying to hit anything.

The fight seemed to last for days. He cut down zombie after zombie but it didn’t seem to make any difference to their numbers. He was covered in blood; some of it his own, most of it not. He tasted it on his tongue, mixed with earth and rot, cold and congealed. He spat and gagged, his ears rang with angered howls and roars and screams, and still they kept coming.

“Sammy!?” he heard once, his brother’s voice full of panic, “Sam!?”

“Here!” he tried to yell back, though whether he was heard or not he had no idea. He could barely see through the press of bodies; sunken eyes and grey skin hanging off bones, all in the ragged Sunday best they’d been buried in. They gave off a putrid smell, different stages of decomposition mixed with some fresher embalming fluid. It was strong and more than concentrated enough to make Sam want to fall to his knees and throw up. His shoulder burned, his every muscle ached with fatigue, and still he fought. Another head went rolling, another brain impaled. He wrenched the spike free and whirled around to deflect another attack. Gore dripped from the end of it, crusted and black in the artificial darkness. The flashes of red that still sparked from the fissures in the ground were pretty much the only light source. Well… that and the occasional blaze of white grace that told him Cas was still alive, or at least he had been a few minutes ago.

A kind of weary terror gripped him. He was going to die. They were _all_ going to die, if the others hadn’t already. There were just too many of them. He let out a yell as something got its teeth into his arm. He shook it off, the iron spike unwieldy and too long for such close-quarter combat, but he managed to stab the thing. Whether he killed it or not he didn’t have time to check as something else grabbed him by his bad shoulder, ragged nails digging in. He cried out and stabbed blindly behind him, the spike meeting resistance as he punched it through flesh and bone and out the other side… and there it caught.

“Shit.”

He tugged at the spike, twisting his body around to get leverage, kicking at another creature that got just a hair too close. He was sweating with the exertion, his throat dry and rough and tears spilled from his eyes as the hopelessness hit him.

_Not like this, please, not like this._

What a stupid thought that was. Who was he pleading to? _Chuck_? Was he really going to beg God for his life? The being who had destroyed it in the first place?

_Fuck that._

He managed to yank the spike free with a sickening wet crunch and whirled around to face his next foe. Anger flooded his system now, imbuing him with a fresh determination to fight until he was torn to pieces, and then choke those swallowing him.

The zombie in front of him fell and then Cas was standing there, trenchcoat in tatters, red and black blood staining his once-white shirt. He looked mostly unhurt: a split lip, a few scratch marks but nothing major. Angel grace, Sam figured.

It took him a while to notice that while they were both just standing there staring at each other, assessing wounds, nothing else had come at them. Then the silence crashed into him; nothing but the drip of blood into grass, the death rattle of the zombie lying at Cas’ feet and his own heartbeat filling his throat. The air that had been stifling and compressed mere seconds ago was now cool and open.

He dropped the spike, his knees hit earth and he began to shake, cold dampness seeping in through his jeans. Had they made it? Had they actually _won_?

It didn’t feel like winning. Corpses littered the ground, blood-soaked and staring. Too many to count, too many for three people to kill. And yet they had. Had they?

Cas was by his side in an instant, gently dropping the ruined trenchcoat over his shoulders. Sam tugged it in around himself. It smelled like copper and death, this whole fucking place smelled like copper and death. He was in shock, he could feel it, he knew the symptoms. Mentally cataloguing his wounds he focused on just breathing. Nothing life-threatening, but he would definitely need stitches in a few places and he’d lost more blood than he was comfortable with. He’d never been so glad that real zombies weren’t infectious in the way all media portrayed them as.

“Is it over?” he asked, hating how his voice wobbled and cracked.

“This part is,” Cas answered, kneeling in front of him, resting a hand on his non-injured shoulder and inspecting his more obvious wounds.

“Dean?”

Cas’ face pinched and he shook his head, his hands falling away from the bite wound in his arm. “I don’t know. I lost him.”

“He used the gun.”

“I counted four shots.” Apparently deeming Sam not in ‘imminent death’ territory, he straightened up and looked around the grisly battlefield. “I have to find him. If you can walk, get to the car, if not, I’ll be back for you.”

“Screw that,” Sam said, forcing himself back onto his feet. It was far more difficult than he would ever admit, what with the battle rush gone and replaced with the actual pain and exhaustion he’d earned during the fight. Still, he tried his best to look imposing as he shrugged off Cas’ coat and handed it back. “I’m not leaving my brother out there.”

Cas looked like he wanted to argue but he swallowed it down, clearly the argument wasn’t worth the wasted time. “Call me if you find him, or pray if you’re too far. I have a little grace left, he might need it.”

And with that, Cas was walking away, not looking back to see if Sam followed or not. Sam didn’t blame him, limping as he was. He had a nasty gash in his leg apparently, he’d not noticed that one. Looking out over the cemetery he understood Cas’ concern. Nothing seemed to be moving. The grass was too heavy with blood to wave in the chill breeze, even the cracks in the earth were no longer flashing. Sam stumbled over to the epicentre of the ring of corpses where he had last seen Dean, where they had all stood together.

“Dean?” He called. Across the graveyard, he heard Cas’ voice echo him. “Where are you? Dean!”

Nothing but the wind answered him. Sam shivered and began shifting bodies, only then realising that it might have been a good idea to pick up his spike just in case, but it was too late now. His clammy hands pulled at zombie after zombie until he saw grass and he felt nausea roil in his stomach. The stench was overwhelming. He gagged and pulled, starting his own pile of corpses, ensuring that this one definitely didn’t contain Dean.

He kept calling for his brother, the hope in his chest choked by fear. If Dean wouldn’t answer then it must be bad. Sam’s mind spun through each scenario, Dean being slowly suffocated by a pile of bodies, Dean unconscious and bleeding out, Dean’s eyes already glassy and lifeless.

Sam let out a sob and redoubled his efforts, ignoring his body’s protests. They had to find him. He couldn’t lose Dean too, not after Jack, he _couldn’t_.

Jack.

He pushed those thoughts away. Time to mourn later, when they were all safe and stitching each other up back at the bunker, or in the closest seedy motel room that wouldn’t ask any questions. If there were any motels left. If Chuck hadn’t opened up these damn Hell portals all over the world.

Moving on panic and muscle memory alone, Sam moved the bodies, his heart tightening whenever he caught a flash of sandy-brown hair or a thick grey jacket, though everything looked grey in this non-light, like a dim blue filter had been placed over the world, leeching it of all vibrancy.

The longer the search went on the more worried he got. Surely Dean would have called out by now, pushed aside whatever he was trapped under, or stuck his hand out and waved so they knew where to look. Cas looked similarly anxious, tossing aside corpses with increased force, sending some into the chasm Chuck had opened up. Perhaps they would become new vessels for demons, if there were any still down there.

What if Dean had fallen down there? What if he was back in Hell? What if—?

“Sam!” Castiel’s urgent voice sliced through his fear. “Over here!”

Sam turned to look. Cas tossed aside another body and knelt, all of his attention on something Sam couldn’t see, the speed of his movements indicating that there was no time to be wasted, which meant that Dean was still alive.

Sam’s first thought was _Oh, thank God_ , and a flash of anger briefly eclipsed the concern for his brother. _Thank God indeed,_ he thought again as he limped over to Cas as fast as he could, _Asshole._

Sam used Cas’ shoulder to help him kneel without collapsing and jarring his leg further. Cas barely seemed to notice, his hand cupped Dean’s blood-spattered cheek, too pale under all the gore. Sam knew a heal when he was witnessing one, that look of concentration told him that it was bad. Hell, one look at Dean told him that it was bad. Dean wasn’t moving; breathing, yes, but shallow, raspy breaths that sounded very much like a punctured lung. He had three bullet wounds, obviously only one of the shots Sam had heard had been a warning. One had ripped through his side and was oozing blood, another had bitten deep into his arm, the final one a clean through-and-through on his calf. By themselves, none of them would be too much cause for concern, but together, and combined with all the other wounds—which apparently included some major internal damage judging from Cas’ expression—it made a concerning picture.

“He must have fallen and been trampled,” Cas gritted out after a moment, pulling his hand away from Dean’s face, although Sam noticed the way his thumb stroked once over Dean’s cheekbone. “I’ve healed what I could of the internal damage. The corpse on top of him had the spike through its eye socket, I’m guessing they attacked him while he was down.”

“Yeah,” Sam said, his voice shakier than he would have liked. “Well, you can’t really expect a zombie to follow battle etiquette.”

The ghost of a smile twitched Cas’ lips as he slipped his arms under Dean and lifted, Sam noticed that the rattle in his brother’s breathing had eased and was grateful, there was little worse than that sound in Sam’s opinion. It featured in all of his worst nightmares.

Cas stayed kneeling for a few moments, allowing Sam to use him as a support to get back to his feet. They stumbled their way over to the car, Sam leaning on Cas far more heavily than he probably should, one of the bonuses of having an angel best friend. The adrenaline had drained out of him completely now and he knew he was crashing, his head buzzed and he felt every second as an extra weight. He was exhausted, spent in a way that he couldn’t even process right now.

Dean stirred as Cas awkwardly tried to lay him in the backseat. He swore and coughed blood and waved Cas off. Cas rolled his eyes and left him to it, skirting around the car to the driver’s seat, ignoring Dean’s half-hearted splutterings about letting the angel drive Baby. Sam braced himself against the open back door and grabbed onto Dean’s ankle, effectively shutting him up.

He stayed there for a moment, eyes squeezed shut, just feeling the heat of Dean’s ankle, the pulse there. He timed his breathing to it, trying desperately to steady himself, ignoring the low scream of his shoulder, the tremble in his legs, the ache of his… everywhere. When he opened his eyes again, Dean was looking at him, bright and concerned, tinged with their own pain. But he was alive, and he was going to be okay.

Sam nodded to himself and let go, easing himself into the passenger seat instead.

“What about all the bodies?” Dean asked, still a slight wheeze to his breath that Sam didn’t like. “We can’t just leave them here for the next person coming to visit Grandma.”

“What does it matter?” Cas returned sharply. “God started the apocalypse. What’s one cemetery?”

“We don’t know that that’s gone viral yet. You wanna start a panic in this town?”

Cas huffed, though he still didn’t start the car, “I think the unnatural darkness will clue them in, don’t you? Besides, it will take time that we don’t have.”

Sam chimed in, “I hate to say it, but Dean has a point. All of these bodies were stabbed in the head, we can’t just start a rumour of an earthquake or something.”

“So what?” Cas rounded on him and it was only then that Sam could see the exhaustion and deep grief etched into his face. Cas had been through just as much as the rest of them today, more than. The poor guy just wanted a break. “You want me to re-bury them all?”

“You could just chuck ’em in the craters and smooth out the grave-sites,” Dean suggested, his voice strangely hesitant. “The less disturbed it looks the better.”

Cas inhaled deeply and ran both hands roughly through his hair and Sam was suddenly reminded that he and Dean were still in the middle of a fight, the added tension cloying in the small space of the Impala.

“Fine.” He snapped, and without another word got out of the car and slammed the door behind him, storming back up towards the graveyard proper.

The brothers exchanged a look. Dean sighed and began to inch his way back to the nearest door.

“Don’t even think about it.” Sam said. “You’re not going anywhere right now.”

Dean grumbled but stopped shuffling, “Dude, you look worse than I feel.”

“Liar.”

“I dunno, you look pretty bad.”

“Yeah, and five minutes ago you were barely even breathing, so...”

They lapsed into a brief silence. After a moment, Dean shifted uncomfortably to lean against the door and winced.

“What about Jack?” He asked quietly.

Sam flinched, but kept his voice even, “He’s dead, Dean.”

“No, I know.” Dean said, twisting the edge of his blood-encrusted shirt in his hands. “I mean… should we maybe find him? Bring him back to the bunker and give him a hunter’s funeral?”

Sam felt a shudder rock through him at the thought. He’d seen Jack’s body get crushed beneath the onslaught of zombies, knew Dean had seen it too.

“I’m scared of what we’d find,” Sam said, and his voice came out small.

Dean turned his head towards where Cas had gone, a forlorn sort of lost expression on his face. “Cas is gonna find him at some point anyway. I didn’t even think—” he met Sam’s eyes with steely determination. “Whatever Cas wants, we do. Okay? Jack was his kid first.”

“Yeah, okay,” Sam agreed, then he paused. “Are you still mad at him, about… about Mom?”

Dean’s jaw clenched, then released with his next squeaky breath. “After this? I think I lost the right to be mad at him about anything ever again.”

Sam said nothing. He saw the guilt and self-hatred burning behind Dean’s eyes but he had no words of comfort to offer. He wasn’t exactly in the right frame of mind to disagree right now. He twisted around in his seat to look at Cas through the window, picking up body after body and dropping them into one of the craters. He looked wrathful and strong, every bit the angel. Even his trenchcoat was back in its impeccable condition. He looked lonely.

“I’m gonna go help,” Sam said, ignoring Dean’s protests about how he could barely walk.

He got out of the car and hobbled back over to Cas, who raised an eyebrow at his leg but said nothing.

They worked together in silence, although admittedly Cas was doing most of the heavy lifting. Sam just kind of pulled bodies into a pile that Cas would then dispose of. It was slow work, and definitely didn’t help his wounds, but it gave him time to think, to process, now that the worst of his shock had passed.

He shook his head, grimacing as he loaded another body onto the pile and his thoughts drifted to Chuck.

Had he been watching? Was he _still_ watching? Sam flipped off the sky, just in case. Had Chuck wanted them to die here or not? He could have just killed them after all, like he had Jack. Why the theatrics? Why the apocalypse? Why any of it? Why raise an entire cemetery of people as the walking undead? What did that mean for them? Had he yanked those souls from Heaven and corrupted them only for him, Dean and Cas to send them to Purgatory? All these people, hundreds of them, and Chuck had used them as what? _Entertainment_?

He felt sick, sick and angry and so goddamn small. And the worst part was that it was the betrayal that stung the most. Sure, God not being exactly what Sam had imagined was one thing, kind of disappointing, kind of gross, kind of meh. But God using them and their lives as some kind of sick _story_ was far worse. He used to believe after all, before it became a known fact that God existed Sam had believed, and he had prayed too, prayed for his family to return safely from their latest hunt, prayed that he would get accepted into law school, prayed for help and guidance when he had no one else to talk to. It had comforted him to believe that there was something out there that was much bigger than his limited world, something that had the big picture all mapped out, something that wasn’t _his_ responsibility.

_They do say never to meet your heroes,_ Sam thought acidly, making a noise of disgust when he pulled too hard and one of the dead zombies’ arms came off with a sound like wet velcro. Some of these bodies had been in the ground for years. He guessed that Chuck must have healed a lot of the oldest ones somewhat or they would have just been fighting skeletons; Sam couldn’t decide if that would have been easier or not.

He dropped the arm and saw Cas wrinkle his nose as he used his foot to nudge the pile of corpses over the edge. Angel strength really came in handy, even if the angel wielding it was pissed.

Thanks to their combined efforts (though if Sam was being completely honest, Cas probably would have been just as quick if not quicker without him) they cleared the cemetery of bodies in less than an hour. Then there was only one left.

Cas stood staring at what was left of Jack for what seemed like years. Sam couldn’t blame him. He too had had a guttural reaction to seeing the boy’s broken body. He had collapsed to the damp ground, his knees once again sinking into the churned mud of the graveyard. The dimness of the light did nothing to hide the empty eye sockets, the limbs twisted in unnatural directions, the hint of bone poking through Jack’s gore-soaked clothes. Tears rolled unbidden down his face but Cas’ expression was impassive. It was only because he knew him so well that Sam could see the minute twitches that gave away the depths of his grief.

“What do you want to do?” Sam asked, his voice barely a rasp.

Cas was silent a moment longer, then he swallowed, knelt and touched the boy’s wrist. Almost instantly the body was clean and wound-free, only the eyes a glaring reminder that he wasn’t merely sleeping. Cas staggered a little and frowned, and then Jack was on fire, just like that.

“Let’s go.” He said, standing and helping Sam to his feet.

Sam looked down at his son, the sweet boy who loved nougat and cartoons and pineapple on pizza, the confused, lonely child that Sam had seen himself in, that he had wanted to help, that he had failed.

He turned away, locking those thoughts up tight. Now wasn’t the time.

When they were about halfway back to the car, Cas once again helping him along as his body decided that enough was enough, there was a sudden, deafening cracking sound from behind them and the earth began to shake violently.

“The hell?” Sam said, stumbling to turn and see what was happening. The small fire that had been Jack’s body had burned out, the boy nothing but ash now, and the ground was knitting itself back together, closing the crevices in the earth. It also seemed to drink in the blood and resettle the dirt on the disturbed graves, the stones of which were re-forming. In fact, after about two minutes it looked just the same as when they had first arrived. The strange, dulled colour of the world lifted and only the two, now clean, iron spikes pulled from the fence were left as any evidence of one of the worst days of Sam’s life.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but Cas’ face contorted with anger.

“You son of a bitch!” He screamed at the sky, pulling away from Sam and hurling his fist into the nearest gravestone. It splintered under the blow, but after a few seconds, the stone melted back together again. “Screw you!” Cas raged, punching the stone again and again with the same result.

“Cas, hey, hey! Come on, let’s go,” Sam said, reaching for the angel’s arm. Cas turned on him with a snarl, fist raised, eyes blazing with the fury of the Heavenly host. Sam stumbled back a step before all the fight seemed to drain out of Cas and he slumped, the tremor in his shoulders almost instantly covered up as he composed himself.

“Come on,” Sam said again, more gently, taking him by the elbow and trying not to lean on him too hard.

“I’m sorry, Sam,” Cas said as they walked. “He just… he knew we’d survive and deal with Jack. As soon as the body was _disposed of,_ ” he spat the words like a bad taste. “That was the trigger to set this place right. This was all part of his _plan_.”

“So... we didn’t win.”

“No,” Cas said bitterly, “we didn’t.”

Sam felt the anger then too. Why put them through this? Why bother toying with them when he could just wipe them all off the map with a snap of his fingers?

His furious mental argument was cut short at the sight of his brother struggling up the slight incline towards them, clutching at his—probably still broken—ribs, legs (one of which still had a bullet wound in it) practically collapsing under him with each step.

“Dean! What the hell are you doing?!” Sam cried, letting go of Cas and pushing the angel towards Dean instead. Cas rolled his eyes but went, taking one of Dean’s arms and slinging it over his shoulder, his own arm wrapping securely around his waist.

Dean grumbled at the manhandling but the fact that he allowed it at all meant he felt pretty damn bad.

“I felt the quake, saw you guys turn back, I didn’t know… I was worried, okay?”

“And how exactly would you have been able to help by dying ten feet from the car?” Sam bit back, unable to keep the frustration out of his voice. His nerves were shot and he slammed the door harder than necessary as he gingerly manoeuvred back into the passenger seat, rubbing at his temples while Cas helped Dean into the back. Sam was about one more sudden movement away from giving out right there, his consciousness was a tenuous thread made up of the pulse of a headache and the fact that they were still at this freaking cemetery.

Cas started the engine, which rattled Sam’s head even more, but the relief at leaving this place behind trumped it. They all seemed to feel it. In fact, none of them said a word until they hit the main road and the graveyard became obscured by trees.

“Well look at us,” Dean said, sarcastic irritation bleeding from his words. “I’d say that went super well. Who’s up for round two?”


	2. The Best Laid Plans are Shot Down

It wasn’t long after they turned onto the highway that whatever fumes Sam had been running on ran out and he slumped against the passenger-side door, giving way to unconsciousness. Dean couldn’t blame him, the poor kid had looked dead on his feet even _before_ going back out to help Cas with clean-up duty. His hair was matted with zombie gore and his own blood and his eyes were sunken and dark, plus he still had a gunshot wound in his shoulder. As proud as Dean was of his brother for taking that shot at God, he wished he hadn’t. During the fight in Zombieland, Dean had been frantic to the point of distraction when he lost sight of Sam, had done his best to carve a path towards him but kept getting pulled back or around each time until he lost all sense of direction, until the only thing left to do was kill. He couldn’t even describe the relief he had felt to wake up and see his brother’s worried face.

“Awww look, he’s all tuckered out.” Dean said, grinning at Cas through the rear-view mirror. Cas’ eyes flicked to him which wiped the smirk off his face pronto, those eyes were flat and angry.

“If I were you, I’d refrain from any more of your hilarious one-liners,” The angel growled, tightening his grip on the wheel. “I’m not in the mood.”

Dean fell into silence then, the air soupy with Cas’ ire and the collective tension of a really bad day. Dean hated these silences, the ones that practically forced him into his own head. He envied Sam his ability to conk out; he was too wired, jittery, and he’d already taken his nap under a zombie, dammit.

Every pothole and uneven stretch of road elicited a pained hiss, too bad to let him sleep, not bad enough to bother doing anything about. He managed a full twenty minutes of ignoring his own thoughts before one in particular wormed its way into his actual consciousness.

“Hey, Cas?”

No response. Well… fine.

“What I said before… It was stupid and I was angry and I was worried and I didn’t mean any of it.”

“Not now, Dean,” was the tight reply.

“What? Cas, I’m trying to say that I’m sor—”

“I understand perfectly, and I’m saying, not now.”

“Wow, okay,” Dean said, trying and failing to keep the incredulity out of his voice as he sank back further into the well-worn leather. “You know, that might be the first time you haven’t wanted an apology from me.”

“It might also be the first time you’ve offered one,” Cas snapped back, his eyes flashing dangerously in the rear-view. “I’m asking you for time. Because I am doing my best to remind myself that what happened today wasn’t your fault.”

Dean’s mouth snapped shut, his teeth colliding with enough force to cause Sam to shift in his seat, definitely audible to Cas’ super hearing then. Great.

He remained fascinated by the view out the window for the rest of the drive home.

Xxx

As soon as Cas rolled Baby to a smooth stop outside the bunker’s front door, he twisted in his seat to press two fingers to Sam’s forehead. Sam woke with an undignified (and at any other time hilarious) squawk before mumbling a thanks for the heal and fumbling awkwardly with the door handle, still half asleep. Cas then motioned for Dean to lean forward for the same treatment but he instinctively shied back instead, his eyes darting away. He could still practically hear the eye-roll though.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Cas said impatiently. “I’m not carrying you inside.”

Reluctantly, knowing that his initial refusal made him look petty rather than… whatever he actually was, and knowing that an argument over this would definitely clue even a dozy Sam in, he shuffled forwards and allowed Cas to heal him. The more-familiar-than-it-probably-should-be warmth of Cas’ grace flowed through him; his pain vanished, his wounds closed, and Dean silently revelled in it. It never failed to surprise him just how… _gentle_ it was, like a considerate guest tidying up before leaving, a metaphysical duster softly brushing away his hurts. But when Cas pulled his hand back and turned to face forwards again, his expression was as stony as ever.

“Thanks,” Dean muttered, scrambling after his brother as fast as he could, anything to get away from this awful, cloying cloud of guilt. He reached Sam at the door and helped him pull it open; Cas might have taken care of their injuries, but he hadn’t quite reached the bone-deep weariness that always seemed to settle after a fight gone bad.

“Hey, shower first, okay?” he said as he ushered a yawning Sam inside. “You’ll feel better and you won’t keep waking up because of zombie stink.”  
  


Sam nodded at him blearily, not quite smiling, and made his way down the stairs, leaning heavily on the railing.  
  


Dean paused a moment and looked back at Cas, who hadn’t moved from the driver’s seat. His hands were still clamped on the wheel, his face hidden in shadow. Dean just barely caught a tremble in those hunched shoulders and his heart twisted at the sight. He swallowed, worrying at his lip. Every instinct told him to walk back to the car, slide in next to Cas and try to comfort the guy, but Cas was pissed at him, rightfully so, and the only thing he had asked Dean for was time. So, feeling like he’d swallowed a round or two of buckshot, he left the door ajar and turned away.

Xxx

He woke sometime around 4.00 am, glad that he’d heeded his own advice for once and showered before passing out. His sheets were clean and sleep-warm and unusually, they weren’t soaked with sweat from his nightmares. In fact, he didn’t remember having nightmares at all; he was actually pretty sure he’d had a _good_ dream, the details of which were slipping away fast like water through his cupped hands. He was left with the clear image of Jack, and the murkier one of Cas leaning against a wall and smiling.

Somehow, that was worse than dreaming of Hell.

He groaned and pushed himself up to sit against the headboard, watching the red numbers of his alarm clock tick over to a new minute, 4.08 am. He felt… restless, like he wanted to be moving. It was an unbearable itch, like ants skittering under his skin. Maybe this was why Sam ran.

Dean flung back the covers and rolled himself out of bed, heading straight for the shower. He might not have sweated through his t-shirt but that dream had left him feeling unclean in a different way. He stepped under the warm spray and let it sink into his shoulders, down his neck, trailing down his spine. He picked out his favourite soap, the one he hardly ever used because the scent was a little more delicate than he usually liked to have associated with him; sandalwood, anise and a touch of cinnamon. This morning he lathered it on, breathing deeply as the spice mingled with the damp steam curling around him.

When he stepped out and slung a towel around his waist he felt better, marginally. Showers were a safe space for him, calming in a way that so few things were. They gave him time to reflect while the hot water refused to let him wallow. But now it was over that restless buzzing started again. He dried off quickly and dressed, and even as he was making the bed—a habit too deeply ingrained in him to ignore at this point—he knew that if he’d stayed in it, he wouldn’t have been able to get back to sleep. A Winchester waking was a Winchester awake, no matter how much he sometimes liked to pretend otherwise for Sam’s amusement. 

When he was done he bounced on the balls of his feet and stared at the door like it was going to come to life and attack him. He knew that he wanted to get out, but he didn’t know _where_. It was too early to head into town and he didn’t want to go much further than that in case Sam woke up and freaked out that he was gone. He should leave a note. He snatched up his journal and ripped out a blank page, hastily scribbling a few words. He folded it and stood it up on the corner of his bed closest to the door to make it obvious.

_Gone out, not far, back soon._

_Call if you need me._

_D_

With that done there was no point in sticking around any longer. He shoved his cell into his pocket and wrenched open the door, his feet turning automatically in the direction of the war room and outside. Maybe he should pull Baby into her designated parking spot in the garage, or hell, just go for a drive, but before he even reached the kitchen he stopped. Just like that. In the middle of the hallway he just stopped walking.

It took him a moment to realise why; he was standing outside Jack’s room.

He swallowed hard. He shouldn’t go in, he told himself, he shouldn’t. He could barely even bring himself to look at the door let alone open it and besides, Cas could be in there, and what was the point? Now it wasn’t Jack’s room, it was just another spare guest room. They’d have to clear it out, get rid of all the stuff Jack had managed to accumulate in his too-short stay. Not today, maybe not for a while. Honestly with the apocalypse being nigh and all, maybe they’d never get the chance.

Dean found his hand twisting the doorknob without his permission and then he was stepping forward, just over the threshold. It looked the same: the empty vivarium by the far wall, the bedsheets slightly creased because Jack hadn’t quite mastered the military corners that he and Sam favoured. There were a few books pilfered from the library, some from the library in town too, possibly the only thing the kid had actually used his fake ID for: fantasy novels and detective stories rather than ancient lore, fiction rather than legends that might actually come back to bite them in the ass. They would have to take those back too, he supposed.

Cas wasn’t in there, for which Dean was grateful. He really didn’t want to see that fury in his eyes again, that _blame_.

He deserved it, of course. He’d tried to kill Jack. He _actively_ left the bunker to find and kill Jack. Would have done it too if God hadn’t showed up and made it into a game, as though killing a kid he’d helped care for and teach and raise wasn’t the ugliest thing that had ever crossed his mind. As though seeing his son kneel there, guilt and acceptance in his eyes hadn’t just about shattered whatever was left of his warped heart.

Cas was right, it _was_ all his fault. Sure, God might have given him the tools and pulled the strings but it had been Dean’s determination to pursue Jack that had even made that possible. Forgiveness hadn’t even seemed like an option, looking for a way to fix Jack’s soul just wasn’t considered; he’d been driven by revenge to get the thing that got Mom.

He really was his father’s son.

He swallowed down the bile that accompanied that thought and turned away, shutting the door behind him with a soft _snick_. The air of the hallway was cool on his overheated skin and he closed his eyes to let it sink in.

There had always been something in Jack that reminded the world who his real father was, something dangerous and dark that Dean had never been able to truly look past, no matter how hard Sam and Cas defended him. Had he been so desperate to shove that final ‘I told you so’ down their throats? What had that got any of them? Two family members down, that’s what.

He started walking again and made it outside without any further detours. He started up Baby and slid her smoothly into her spot in the garage before getting back out and starting to walk, taking one of the forest trails that Sam liked to use on his jogging route.

He’d rather be driving Baby, he thought as he pushed aside a bramble, but the itch under his skin was such that he knew he’d keep going until he ran out of gas. It was best he stayed close, like he’d promised. Sam didn’t need another disappointment right now. Besides, this was nice. The walking was keeping him warm enough that he didn’t need a jacket and the pre-dawn gloom was just starting to lift, lightening the world to shades of grey. The air was cold and clean in his lungs, delicately scented with earth, flowers and whatever animals lived in these woods. It was calming, and as long as he concentrated on where to place his feet so he didn’t trip over a root, then he didn’t have the brainpower to think about anything else.  
  


He followed the trail to a bend and then turned off it to the right. The brush was thicker here, less easily travelled, but he’d been this way before so at least he knew that there was something to find at the other end of it.

He emerged at the base of a small, grassy hill. In the summer the hill was usually adorned with a rainbow of wildflowers but now, in April, there were only a few early bloomers, pops of white the only colour he could really discern in the dark.

It took him longer than he would have liked to scale the thing, losing his breath once or twice before he reached the top. If Sam were here Dean would have made a joke about getting old, which would have been returned with a bitchface and a quip about how it was more likely to be the amount of grease and alcohol clogging his arteries than anything else.

Dean shook his head as he flopped down onto the dew-damp grass, breathing heavily while he waited for his heartbeat to return to normal. He knew his brother probably had a point, several points if he was being honest, but he knew that Sam would get just as worried if he poured all his liquor down the drain, started snacking on fruit and used the bunker gym more than twice a month. Besides, he wasn’t exactly afraid of dying of heart failure.

Studying the sky, he twisted himself to face East, where the grey was beginning to mingle with rays of yellow, and waited. The hill he was on gave him a good line of sight to the horizon, so he watched the stars begin to fade around that focal point of golden light, the sky easing from almost black to a brilliant indigo followed by burnt orange as the sun peeped over what looked like the edge of the world. Light spilled over his hill, revealing soft pinks and deep purples, bright yellows and earthy browns and more shades of green than he could name. He watched as colour return to the world, the sky seeming to bleed its hues to the ground below, leaving it almost bleached, just the slightest hint of blue, the wispy clouds barely visible against it, and he thought that Chuck had at least done one thing right.

Before long, he had to shield his eyes as the sun continued to climb and he lay back in the grass, feeling the damp seep into his clothes but unable to bring himself to care. He lay there, thinking about Jack, about Mary, about whether he’d been right or whether it even mattered. He silently grieved them both. The hollow pit his mother had left the first time had only grown larger after getting the chance to know and love her again in adulthood. The wound that had never really healed over had been roughly re-opened, and it was going to take even longer now for it to scar.

And Jack… no matter how complicated things there were, no matter that a part of Dean just couldn’t forgive the boy for what he had done, a larger part of him was glad that he hadn’t been able to pull the trigger. Even though it was Dean’s fault that they were in that damn cemetery in the first place, Dean’s fault that Jack had died, Dean’s fault that the apocalypse was currently in progress, he hadn’t pulled the trigger. Maybe that didn’t mean anything in the long run, but it meant something to Dean. It was pretty much the only thing he could hold on to in fact, the one thing he’d done _right_ in the past few days of fury and fucked-up decisions.

He thought about Chuck too, the God that Dean had never really believed in until he met the guy and then had the freaking gall to assume that he was on their side; that in his own, detached, deadbeat way, he actually cared about this world and the people in it, that when push came to shove he’d see things set right. But now they were way past shove and things were so, so wrong.

A tinny, generic sound blared out from his pocket, shattering the tentative peace of sunrise on the hill. He sighed, but dutifully reached for his phone and swiped, squinting at the name on the screen first, though he already knew who it would be.

“Sammy?”

“Dean, hey.” His brother’s voice sounded relieved that he’d picked up. “How far out did you get?”

“Uhh… I can be back in fifteen minutes, what’s up?”

“That’s all? I figured you wouldn’t be able to help yourself when I saw the car was gone.”

“She ain’t gone, I just moved her to the garage,” Dean said, sitting up. “Why’d you call, Sam?” He winced at how accusatory that sounded, as though Sam didn’t have any right to call him, when Dean had left a note telling him to do exactly that.

Sam seemed to hear it too and the exhaustion was evident in his voice when he replied, “I just wanted to make sure you were planning on coming back,” he said. “And I didn’t mean the Impala, Dean, I meant the old Corolla that you lifted, though why you chose that car, I’ve no—”

“Wait, what? The Corolla’s gone?”

“Yeah... you didn’t take it?”

“No, I walked.”

There was a brief silence while the meaning of the missing car sunk in, then:

“Call him.”

“ _You_ call him, I don’t think he’d pick up for me right now.”

“Fine. But get your ass back here.”

“Yeah.”

It was an unceremonious end to the call but whatever. Dean took a minute to breathe and pressed the phone to his forehead before shoving it back in his pocket and beginning the trek back to the bunker.

Xxx

He met Sam in the war room. He sat at the map table with his phone in front of him, head in his palms, his fingers threaded into his hair.

“He’s not coming back,” Sam said into his hands when Dean closed the door behind him. “He said he’s going to try and find out how the apocalypse is going to form; aside from that cemetery nothing major seems to have hit the news yet. But we both know that’s just an excuse.”

Sam looked up at him then, his eyes angry and ringed in dark circles. “Dammit, Dean. Damn you for this.”

“Hey, I didn’t tell Cas to run off,” Dean's temper flared immediately, burning over the sting of Cas’ abrupt departure. It had barely been half an hour since that peaceful sunrise, but already it was shaping up to be a real shitty day.

“You told him that he was dead to you. You told him that if he couldn’t get on board with killing Jack, to walk away. You’ve told him to leave a million different ways over the years and now he finally has. Congratulations.”

Well _that_ hit him like a brick to the face, not least because of the venom in Sam’s voice.

“I _tried_ to apologise, okay? He didn’t want to hear it.”  
  


It was a lame retort and they both knew it. Sam didn’t even bother responding. Dean looked down, trying to think of a time when he had asked Cas to stay to use in his defence and found that he was coming up empty. He thought it'd been obvious that was what he wanted. Then again, what he wanted didn’t mean shit. Especially now.

“Whatever,” Dean hedged, trying to keep whatever peace he could. “He’s gonna do what he’s gotta do and so are we. I’m gonna call Jody, Garth and Rowena. You take Bobby, Charlie, the other Apocalypse World survivors and anyone else you can think of. We've gotta get the word out.”

“Oh yeah, I’m sure they’ll be thrilled. They left one apocalypse-ravaged planet for another.”

“Well they can leave us a shitty Yelp review, but this is an all-hands kinda deal.”

Dean half-turned away and fished out his phone, but before he could even unlock it Sam’s voice sounded behind him once again.

“All hands except for Cas’, right?”

Dean sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He reminded himself that Sam was just tired, grumpy and grieving and that he had every right to be angry at him. It still stung.

“What do you want me to do, Sam? Hunt him down and drag him back by the hair? The guy just wants some time.”

“Oh, so _now_ you listen to what he wants.”

“Okay, if you’re just gonna snip at me about Cas then shut up. He’ll come back when he wants to and that’s all there is to it.”

“So… you don’t even care.” Sam said on an exhale, like he wasn’t surprised at Dean’s callousness. That sucked, especially because Dean wasn’t _trying_ to be callous. He wasn’t.

“That’s not—Did you get any sleep?”

“Wow. Subtle subject change, Dean, real smooth.”

“Did you?”

“What do you think?” Sam snapped. “Yesterday was probably the worst day of my life and you of all people know how high that bar is. No, I didn’t get much sleep.”

_This is my fault_. Dean thought, something in his chest twisting at the sight of his brother looking so completely overwhelmed. _This is all my fault_.

“Then either go take a nap or make yourself useful,” he said, breezing past his brother towards his own room. He nudged the phone on the table on his way, unable to look at the defeat on Sam’s face. “I’m calling Jody.”

Xxx

“So the angel just _left_ ?” Rowena’s soft accent crackled down the phone, apparently she was near mountains or something and it was interfering with the signal. “Hoo boy, you must _really_ have pissed him off. I thought you’d need a crowbar to separate the two of you.”

“ _That’s_ what you got from this? God, the apocalypse, none of that gets so much as a gasp—”

“Old news. I’ve already had my crisis of faith about Lucifer and it’s not as though this is the first apocalypse. But you bring me _gossip,_ which is far more interesting.”

“Interes—Rowena, we just lost our _kid.”_

There was a soft sigh. “Aye,” she said. “Sweet boy, I’ll miss him. All the more reason to find our pleasures where we can, don’t you think?”

Dean closed his eyes and took a moment to just breathe. He couldn’t kill Rowena through the phone anyway. “How are things out where you are? Anything weird happen in the last twelve hours or so?”

“Hmm… Nothing too unusual. I did feel a huge spike of power but I’m assuming that was you lot. Looks like there’s a new ghost in town too but that feels a little low-level for what you’re asking about.”

“Yeah, ghosts are the least of our problems right now.”

“That’s what I thought. Well… I’ll take care of it and I should be able to make it to the bunker by dinnertime.”

“To the—why?”

“It’s the _apocalypse,_ Dean. You’re going to need me. Tatty bye.”

The line went dead.

Dean blinked down at the phone in his hand and huffed, dropping it onto the bed.

“Damn witch,” he muttered, though he didn’t actually hate the idea of having some backup. Jody and her band of misfits had said they were going to set up a patrol in Sioux Falls, Garth had cheerfully promised he’d keep his eyes open but they’d basically told him the same thing as Rowena: a couple of cases had popped up on the radar but nothing world-endy or even particularly noteworthy. A vamp attack here, a poltergeist there, no more signs of demon activity than usual, or even strange weather patterns since the cemetery.

It was so freaking normal that Dean wanted to yank at his hair until it came out in clumps. His mouth felt like he’d just held an ice cube to a particularly sensitive tooth, unease to the point of pain. They knew that something bad was going to happen, but they couldn’t prevent it until something bad _actually_ happened to give them a lead.

Having Rowena here would be a distraction from that at least.

And Sam could definitely use the break.

His stomach let out a loud gurgle and he looked down in surprise. Not even the end of the world could curb his appetite for bacon apparently. He checked the time, a little after seven. He doubted Sam would have made himself anything, he often forgot to eat the day after a shitstorm.

Dean headed back towards the kitchen, hoping his brother would be in a better, or at least quieter, mood.

Sam sat where Dean had left him: phone on the table, hair matted, eyes haunted.

“Did you call around?” Dean asked as he made a beeline for the fridge. He did his best to keep his voice gentle. He wasn’t trying to take a dig.

“I’m not incompetent,” Sam snapped, then he sighed as he looked up and saw Dean with his hands up in an _I surrender_ gesture. “Yeah, I called. Charlie wants to stay out of it but she’ll let us know if she hears anything big. Other than that, nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Just a few small ghost cases, right?”

Sam frowned at him in surprise and Dean shrugged. “Jody, Garth and Rowena said the same thing. Which could be a sign of something or…” he shook his head, getting out the ingredients for pancakes. There were still some fresh fruit pieces in the fridge too, so Dean tipped them into a bowl and set it in front of Sam with a spoon, shifting the phone to the side. “And Rowena said she’s gonna be heading our way. Should be here tonight.”

“Did you tell her to?”

“If I had, she probably wouldn’t be coming.”

Dean took a little too much pride in the way Sam’s lips quirked upwards at that and poured the batter into the pan to hide his own smile.

The kitchen slowly filled with the smell of pancakes and bacon, the rhythmic sound of Sam’s spoon scraping against the sides of the bowl and Dean humming through his favourite AC/DC songs. When he turned back around to serve, he almost expected to see Cas and Jack sat there too, Jack expectant for breakfast, Cas fond and just enjoying the company. He even pictured Mary leaning in the doorway, hair mussed from sleep.

But it was only Sam and Dean felt his heart sink, just a little. He whisked away Sam’s empty bowl and replaced it with a small stack of pancakes. He then set his own down before grabbing the bottle of syrup from the cupboard and gathering cutlery so Sam had time to squeeze a dollop on the side of his plate before Dean drowned his own.

Neither brother spoke as they ate. The pancakes were good if Dean did say so himself; the salty, crisped bacon contrasted nicely with the sweet syrup and only one of them was slightly overdone. It wasn’t exactly a comfortable silence though. The air was too heavy with the weight of the people who should have been in those empty chairs, added to the strained anticipation of waiting for something they couldn’t put a name to, other than _bad_.

Sam’s eyes stayed resolutely on his plate, as though looking up was the trigger to jump-start whatever was coming next. Dean stayed at the table watching him, though he had practically shovelled down his breakfast in record time. He waited until Sam had taken the last bite before he decided to break the ominous quiet.

“I guess I’ll go set up some more of those weather alerts,” he said, pushing his chair back with a too-loud scraping sound that made Sam flinch. “Sorry. There are plenty of cases we could go for if you want? They’re not _God_ level or anything but I don’t wanna be caught with our pants down in case something happens. Maybe a simple salt and burn type?”

“I don’t really feel like hunting right now, Dean.”

“Sure. Well then we can hide out here and research God. How hard can it be? We’ve killed gods before.”

“There’s a difference between gods and God with a capital G,” Sam said heavily. “They all had limitations, weaknesses, or at least somewhere to _start.”_

“We’ve got the gun,” Dean said slowly. “You took a shot at him and it hit.”

“Yeah and if I’d been aiming for the head, it would’ve killed me.” Sam shot back.

“End of the world, man. Desperate times.”

Sam levelled a glare at him, “Who’s to say it would even kill him? Just because it hit doesn’t mean it did any damage. Cas healed my wound easy enough and we only have God’s word, and what the hell is that worth? He also said he couldn’t kill Jack.”

Dean’s jaw clenched at the crack in his brother’s voice but he couldn’t indulge the part of him that wanted to mourn too. He didn’t have the time, or the right, if he was being truly honest with himself. He got Jack killed and he was amazed that Sam could even stand to be in the same room as him. But they had the gun. So if he couldn’t fix this, maybe at least he could end it—if Sam was wrong and God hadn’t just been talking out of his ass about what that thing would kill.

“Stop it,” Sam said suddenly, jerking Dean out of his thoughts. “I know that look. Stop it.”

“What?”

“You’re thinking about using the gun on God. Stop.”

He didn’t bother trying to deny it. “We don’t have a better plan right now, Sam.”

“We don’t have _any_ plan right now,” Sam snapped back, his eyes fierce. “Not a damn one. The gun isn’t a plan, it’s a tool. And maybe we’ll have to use it, maybe we won’t, but we don’t even know our next step yet so we can’t exactly sketch out an endgame.”

“I’m just saying, it’s an option.”

Sam snorted loudly and ran a hand through his tangled hair. “Yeah, and it’s the only option you’re going to fixate on now, isn’t it? Because once you’ve got it in your head that there’s a way for you to go out in a blaze of glory, you’re gonna bend over backwards to make sure that that’s our only choice left, so that we’ll forgive you for going after Jack like you did. Well, guess what, Dean? Dying isn’t an apology.”

And with that, Sam slammed his hands to the table and pushed himself up. He was out the door before Dean could even react, gaping like a particularly stupid goldfish in the direction of the hallway.

He groaned and dropped his forehead to the table for a moment before standing to gather up the dirty dishes and toss them into the sink for later. He knew Sammy blamed him. Of course he did, how could he not? No matter which way you sliced it Jack would not be dead if Dean hadn’t been so gung-ho to kill him, whether he actually did the deed himself or not.

He spent pretty much the rest of the day in the library, though he was making more of a mess than any actual progress. He wasn’t even sure he was looking in the right books. There were several editions of the Bible and a few religious scrolls and cross-referencing them was a bitch. Plus, it only made him angry whenever they praised God, which was all the freaking time, and reiterated how immortal and invulnerable he was. He did his best to channel that anger into his research but a lot of it was leaking out the sides. He kept glancing up whenever a pipe gurgled, in case it was actually Sam coming to help him out, even though he knew the kid probably needed at least a day just to become functional again, let alone employ his galaxy brain to the best of its ability. In the meantime, Dean could at least cross a few things out.

He kept dipping back to the kitchen for coffee and left a plate of sandwiches outside Sam’s door as a peace offering around lunchtime. On his next pass through a few hours later he found the empty plate sitting there and decided he should probably tackle the dishes.

He was scrubbing at a particularly tenacious glob of syrup when the lights in the bunker went out. The plate slipped from his fingers and landed with a crash back into the sink, sending soapy water sloshing onto his shirt.

In the time it took for him to register his now-wet stomach, the light came back emergency red and an alarm started sounding.

“Sam!?” Dean yelled, spinning away from the sink and reaching for the gun taped under the table. He ripped it free and levelled it in front of him, resting the butt on the fist of his other hand to steady it. He stepped towards the kitchen doorway and swung the gun left, and then right. Seeing nothing he headed in the direction of Sam’s room, keeping his gun up. He thought about calling again but the alarm was blaring too loud for him to be heard. He kept his feet light as he moved forward, jerking his head back every few seconds to check his six. No way would he be able to hear anything creeping up behind him with this stupid alarm. The red light created deep shadows too, which really didn’t help the sour dread in his stomach.

Sam rounded the next corner and they both took a heartbeat to lower their weapons and breathe in relief, their argument forgotten in light of immediate danger.

“What’s happening?” Sam mouthed.

Dean shrugged and shook his head, but motioned to his ears. Sam nodded and they fell into step, heading in the direction of the war room, where they could silence the alarm and hopefully figure out what the hell was going on. Dean kept checking behind them while Sam took charge at corners and open doorways, quickly moving on when there was nothing to find. When they got to the war room they both tensed at the expectation of _something,_ but when Sam stepped into the doorway, blade up, he lowered it again and motioned that it was safe.

Confused and irritated, they moved together into the larger space. Sam headed for the control panel while Dean went for the doorway to the library, his gun still pointed ahead of him, his finger a little closer to the trigger than was probably safe. He didn’t like this. Something was wrong, he felt it in his gut. Plus, the alarms were a big clue.

The library looked just as it had less than ten minutes ago, albeit bathed in red light. His gaze lingered on the letters carved into the closest table and something sad struggled in his chest. Then the world went dark for a moment, before the lights came back on in their usual strong glare. The alarm switched off too, but the ringing continued in Dean’s ears, probably would for a few more minutes at least. Those things were _loud._

He turned his back on the library, deeming it empty of all things suspicious, and saw his brother hunched over the control panel, staring at all the blinking lights and looking thoroughly nonplussed.

“What went wrong?” Dean asked, going to stand next to him and inspect the machinery too. He’d mostly figured out the different lights and their meanings, but it was the combinations that eluded him. There was one for each room of the bunker, one for a technical failure, one for a breach of the embedded warding, but if more than one thing happened at a time the whole thing went haywire. He was sure the answer would have something to do with the pattern and frequency of the lights but he’d never managed to get an accurate read. Right now, looking at the deliberate swirls and spikes of activity, Dean’s only conclusion was that it could mean anything.

“You’d know better than me,” Sam said. “No meaning that I can work out. Isn’t this supposed to happen when it’s like… worldwide bad or something? Maybe it finally caught wind that it’s the apocalypse again.”

“Or maybe Chuck just brought the apocalypse into real time,” Dean guessed. “Maybe he got bored of dicking us around and set the ball rolling.”

“After a day? He’s been dicking us around our entire lives, you think he’s already got a plan?”

“He’s _God,”_ Dean said dismissively. “Having a plan is supposed to be his thing.”

“Either way, I don’t like it,” Sam gritted out. “And I know I’m not gonna feel safe until we’ve searched every room of this place.”

“Yeah,” Dean agreed. “Come on, we can start in the garage and work our way through.”

Sam nodded and they headed back the way they’d come, but just as they hit the doorway Dean came face to face with a pair of black eyes and a terrifying grin.

“Howdy, partner,” his demon self said, twirling a gleaming blade between his fingers. “Miss me?”


	3. It's an Ugly Mirror Image

It took Sam a good few seconds to even notice his brother’s demon doppelgänger next to his own. There were no black eyes on this one though, and he wasn’t holding a weapon. It was just Sam; albeit a Sam that clearly worked out at least twice as much as he already did. It was only the relaxed slope of his shoulder, wry smile and empty eyes that gave him away.

"Looks like that soul was a bad fit after all, huh?” The other Sam said, looking him up and down with a twist to his mouth, “You look so… squishy.”

Sam swallowed and shifted his grip on the blade in his hand, the other noticed and stepped forward with an eager gleam in his eyes.

_BANG!_

Sam ducked instinctively, bringing his hands up to protect his head as the sound of a gunshot reverberated through the tiled hallway, setting his ears ringing. When he looked up there was a bullet in Soulless Sam’s temple and Dean held the gun steady while he waited to see what happened next.

Unfortunately, all that happened was Soulless Sam smirked and pulled the bullet from where it had crumpled against his skin.

"Divine upgrade,” he said with a shrug. “Looks like the guy upstairs thinks a gun just isn’t playing fair.”

"Not that it would work on me anyway,” the demon butted in, his eyes fixed on Dean with a hungry expression.

Sam lurched sideways to grab his brother and tug him back into the war room; at least there was space to manoeuvre in here, and there should be a blade for Dean stashed behind one of the cupboards if he could get to it.

Their doubles followed, of course, looking more amused at the sudden retreat than anything.

“Running away?” Soulless Sam mocked as he advanced. “You haven’t changed much, have you?”

“I’ve changed enough,” Sam said distractedly, eyes darting to the exits, to Dean, to anything that might explain what the hell was going on.

“You can’t escape me, Dean, remember?” The demon version of his brother jeered, “There’ll always be that tiny part of you that wants me back in control.”

“Yeah, well, that part of me can go screw itself,” Dean retorted, meeting his brother’s eyes, his face grim despite the jovial tone. A straight-up fist fight with themselves was not ideal. They knew how good they were; add that to demon super-strength and a lack of inhibitions and apparently _bulletproof_ and this fight was lost before it even started.

Then again, that had never stopped them before.

Sam set his stance to something immovable and squared off against his other self. It was more posturing than anything. He was used to having a height advantage against his opponents and had learned to use it in the way he structured himself; it lent him an edge that even a lot of supercharged creatures were unprepared for. But soulless him knew that just as well as he did, if the smirk on his face was anything to go by.

Demon Dean didn’t waste time and charged at his brother with a maniacal laugh that still haunted Sam’s dreams. They collided with a crash and Sam had to force his attention back to his own looming fight.

Soulless Sam stepped to the left and Sam mirrored him. They circled each other, trying to calculate the best way in, neither giving an inch. Soulless Sam was calm though, while _he_ was beginning to sweat, trepidation swirling in his gut. This whole thing was freaking him out. It was too much; after the hell that was yesterday he’d been banking on some time to recover, to _grieve_. The bunker was supposed to be safe. He supposed it was naïve of him to still think that but this place had become a staple of his life, a solid, tangible location that promised a reprieve from the shit that was the rest of his existence, however brief. A home.

He missed a step and his double took advantage, darting in quick to land a powerful right hook to his jaw, knocking him off balance and seizing the chance to slam him to the ground by the neck; the breath punched from his chest as his blade was kicked away, but he managed to swing a leg around into his other self's ribs. Soulless Sam grunted and loosened his grip enough that Sam could scramble backwards until his spine hit one of the legs of the map table, on top of which Dean had briefly pinned his own doppelgänger.

Other him’s lips curled derisively and he advanced, but they were both briefly distracted when Dean was thrown backwards into a cabinet with a crash, sending glass and shards of wood flying. Dean vanished from view in the wreckage as the demon straightened up, fixing his shirt.

“Aww, come on, Dean, You not gonna lie there and take it like a good boy?”

“Screw you,” came the muffled reply somewhere in the pile of debris and Sam let out a sound of relief at the confirmation of life before forcing himself to refocus on his own threat.

“Poor little Sammy,” Soulless Sam taunted, boots crunching on some far-flung pieces of glass as he took another few steps until he loomed over him. God, he was _tall._ Sam kind of got why Dean ragged on him for it all the time now. “Still waiting around for your big brother to save you.” He glanced over at where Dean was being dragged from the destroyed cabinet by his collar. “I think he’s a little preoccupied at the moment.”

Sam used the half-second that his double’s attention wasn’t completely on him to snag the metal leg of the heavy, wheeled chair next to him and send it flying forwards. It was cumbersome and he couldn’t quite get the momentum he’d need to do any damage, but the space and the few seconds it bought him was enough for him to get back to his feet.

Soulless Sam flung aside the chair with a growl, propelling it in the direction of one of the control panels with force. The back hit the panel while the bottom of the chair kept going and it tipped over, bouncing twice on the concrete before laying still. Sam was already moving; he dodged an uppercut and managed to jab his fist into his other self’s kidney, only to get a knee to the stomach for his troubles. He grunted at the impact but managed to keep his footing, grabbing the knee when it came back for another hit and pushing forward, trying to force the other back, to what end he wasn’t sure—could these things even die?

They went down together, Soulless Sam willingly, rolling along the curve of his spine, using Sam’s own force against him and flipping him over so he was once more lying on the concrete, on his front this time, winded and a little dizzy.

“Give it up, Sam, I know all your tricks.”

Sam levered himself up onto his elbows and from this new position he saw where his blade had skittered under the map table, the sharpened edge flickering with reflected light. Then he was being rolled over by a rough hand and a fist connected with his jaw. He felt a sharp sting and tear as his lip split and weight settled on his hips, causing the gun in his waistband to dig painfully into his back. He bucked wildly, panic shooting lightning through his nerves; this wasn’t the first time he’d fought something that looked like himself, but when he was soulless he’d been stronger, having had nothing other than hunting that gave him any kind of purpose, any semblance of feeling, so he’d thrown himself into it completely. Also, the not-sleeping thing had helped.

“Sam!” His brother called from across the room, his voice thick and slurred. He heard an answering laugh, also his brother’s voice, and the sound of splintering wood.

Sam coughed out a “Yeah,” hopefully loud enough that Dean could hear, knowing that neither of them could really help each other but still, proof of life.

“Nice that he still cares, I guess.” Soulless Sam said between punches, simply rolling with Sam’s attempts to unseat him, his knees tight against Sam’s sides, pinning his arms and digging into his ribs. “Surprising really, considering how much he holds you back. You could almost believe he wants the best for you, you know, if you didn’t feel like you were leashed to him.”

“That’s not true.” Sam ground out—momentarily giving up on the struggle in order to just get his breath back. The denial was instinctive, any claim that he and Dean were less than united, always, risked exposing their weaknesses.

“I _am_ you, Sam. You can’t lie to me.”

Damn him for being so in control, so calm, while Sam flopped around on the floor like a dying fish. It was embarrassing, honestly; had he really lost his edge in the past few years? He’d stopped training so rigorously when he got his soul back but being able to appreciate life again had more than made up for it in his opinion. Empathy was just as important in hunting as being able to fire a gun, something that most other hunters he’d met seemed to disagree with, more enamoured with the ‘hunting things’ part of the business than saving people.

He wrenched an arm free and reached up to grab the other Sam’s shirt, roughly jerking him forward so that their two heads collided with a _crack._ Blood exploded across his face and Soulless Sam pulled off him with a yell, clutching at his nose. Sam didn’t waste time, scrambling for the blade, using the toes of his boots to push himself along the ground. Hands scrabbled at his ankles but he kicked them off, stretching his arm out and trying to see through the haze of red. His fingers fell on metal and closed around it. Ignoring the spike of pain in his hand he transferred it to his other, grip-first.

He managed to get his legs under him and push back to his feet, wiping the blood from his eyes and catching a glimpse of Dean, bent double and gasping while the demon version of him stalked forward, malice oozing from every movement.

Pained, but knowing he could do nothing to help, Sam turned away just as his own opponent rushed him. He brought the knife up, pressing it through skin, under ribs, and twisting maliciously as it pierced his other self’s heart. His eyes widened, and his jaw fell slack.

“I haven’t been you for a long time.” Sam growled in his ear before letting the body slide off the blade and to the ground. He spat blood from his mouth and turned back to Dean, who was now struggling in the grip of the demon.

“Dean!” He called out, and then he threw the demon-killing knife towards his brother.

Dean swung his head around and, in a move practised and honed through years of trust, experience and reflex, snatched the knife from the air and buried it deep in his double’s chest. There was a crackle of energy and Demon Dean convulsed around the blade before dropping.

“Thanks, Sammy.” Dean said, breathing hard. With a look they took in each other’s injuries; they were both beat to hell but more or less intact. Honestly, Sam felt more shaken than he did hurt. That whole thing had freaked him out. It was one thing to remember the things he had done without a soul, to relive them from a first-person perspective was bad enough, but to come literally face-to-face with it had his stomach twisting. He’d never cared to notice the changes in the mirror, how empty his eyes were, the air of arrogance about him, the conviction that he wasn’t lacking anything that was worth missing. It made him feel sick.

Dean wiped the demon-killing-blade on his double’s shirt before handing it back to him and walking over to pick up his gun.

“Well,” he said as he inspected the barrel for any damage. “Hopefully Chuck’s entertained enough now to leave us alone for a few hours.”

Sam pressed his lips together, pushing down the flash of anger at Dean’s dismissal of the whole ordeal, as Dean dismissed everything that he didn’t want to deal with immediately.

“You know, I really think we should—” he started to say, but he was interrupted by the fact that he started _flying backwards_. He hit the wall and the blade was knocked from his hand again. Dean had been pinned to the opposite wall and they exchanged wide-eyed looks. _What now?_

“What have you done?” came a soft voice from the doorway. Sam looked around to see himself, again, but this version was skinnier, his hair was shorter and less styled than he kept it now. And he looked so _young_. He walked forward slowly, arms outstretched, shaking as he struggled to hold both brothers in place.

“What are you talking about?” Sam asked, trying to sound casual even as he strained against the power holding him. Dean had stopped struggling, staring between the two Sams and looking utterly creeped out. Yeah, he knew the feeling.

Young Sam swallowed and frowned, clearly fighting off a headache and Sam felt his heart squeeze with pity, he remembered the toll demon blood had had on him, remembered the rush of it, and the cost.

“You broke the world!” His younger self said, sounding betrayed. “You’ve killed people, people who didn’t deserve—” he paused, forcing a deep breath. “I was supposed to _help!_ ” He yelled, and his eyes were full of tears, “I was supposed to make things better.”

“I know,” Sam said, because he did. “Let us down, kid. We don’t wanna hurt you, okay? We just wanna talk.”

Young Sam flicked his eyes between the two of them before dropping his arms. Sam dropped, and although his knees buckled, managed to keep his feet. From the sounds of it, Dean wasn’t so lucky, but he kept his eyes on his younger self.

“I’m not a kid!” The child insisted, wiping at his bloody nose and pinning him with a fierce glare. Sam resisted the urge to cry; was this how Dean had felt every time Sam said that exact same thing? “I can’t believe I became you. Do you know how many versions of you there are, waiting for their turn to come and fight you? You’re outnumbered by your own evil, _both_ of you. And yeah, maybe I made a mistake here, with this,” he pulled out a small, silver flask. “But I didn’t _know_. And I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I wanted to stop the apocalypse!”

“I remember,” Sam said quietly, thinking of Ruby’s delighted face, of the dread that settled in his stomach at the realisation of what he’d done. “I didn’t know either.”

“Maybe not this time,” Young Sam insisted. “But you chose your own life over closing Hell forever. You said yes to _Lucifer_. You went against _God_ because the consequences of His plan would affect you personally. What happened to doing the right thing? What happened to saving as many people as you can?”

“Life ain’t the trolley problem, kid,” Dean chimed in from across the room, having got to his feet. He was keeping his distance from the younger Sam though, which was surprising really, Sam thought Dean would have attacked by now. “You make your choices as best you can in the moment, and you don’t always have the time to theorise about which saves the most people when the other guy is family.”

“Like you’ve ever thought anything through,” the kid snapped, turning his glare on Dean. “You’d sacrifice yourself for a chipmunk if it came at you with the right sob story but you still manage to make everyone around you miserable!”

“Hey!” Sam said, drawing the kid’s attention back over while Dean’s face flickered through a series of painful emotions.

“You gave up!” his younger self accused, raising his hand to point at him. Sam flinched but held his ground. “When was the last time you even tried to exorcise anyone?! There are _people_ in there, you used to care about that! Hell, that’s the whole reason I started this.” He tapped at his jacket where he’d stored the flask.

“Exorcising doesn’t kill the demon,” Dean said, sounding almost hesitant.

“SO WHAT!?” Young Sam bellowed, pushing his hand out to shove Dean back into the wall. “It saves the _person.”_

“You’re right,” Sam said quietly, holding his hands out and taking a half-step forward, even as his heart beat loudly in his ears. “You’re right. Sometimes we... we lose sight of that. In the middle of a fight it’s easier to just grab a weapon and keep swinging. And I tell myself that I’ve saved every person that demon would have killed, but... I know it’s a lot of blood to wash off.”

Young Sam mirrored his step with a glare that chilled him to the bone. “I’m ashamed that I became you.”

Sam clenched his jaw and swallowed hard, trying not to let the sting under his skin. He’d long known that he wasn’t someone he ever thought he’d be. He knew he’d made mistakes, bad ones, and he knew that good people had died because he’d passed through their lives.

“I know,” he said, flashing a sad smile. “I can’t change what I’ve done, but not all of it was bad. I’ve helped people too, saved them.” He took a deep breath and deliberately kept his eyes away from Dean as he continued. “I’m not you anymore. I don’t need you to be okay with who I am. _I’m_ okay with who I am and I know that that’s something you’ve never really had. _I_ get that for you, for us. So that’s my apology, I guess.”

His younger self seemed to chew over those words for a few moments, then, “I never wanted to be a hunter.”

“No,” Sam said, chancing another step forward, this time the other didn’t retreat. “But at least for me it’s a choice.”

A soft laugh sounded then that made all the hair on Sam’s neck prickle to attention; it bounced around the tiles and seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere all at once. Sam’s younger self froze and his eyes widened; his head snapped around towards the door to the hallway before jolting back, suddenly terrified.

“You should go,” he said.

“Go where?” Dean asked, limping his way over, “What the hell is happening here?”

The sound of metal scraping along stone reached them now, accompanied by slow, even, dragging footsteps. It set Sam’s teeth on edge and fear tripped along his spine. He knew in his gut that he _did not_ want to meet the thing that those sounds belonged to.

“He wants to drive you out,” Young Sam said, speaking quickly now, and he kept glancing towards the doorway. “You need to leave.”

“Why?”

“Think of where we are, Dean,” he said, looking around at the map table, the door to the library, the giant telescope that Sam only looked through twice since moving in, “and what’s here. But it doesn’t matter. You don’t survive if you don’t leave right now.”

“What are you—”

Dean choked on the rest of his words as a shape rounded the corner of the hallway and into the war room. All the blood vanished from his face, leaving him as white as an empty canvas. Sam looked around to see what had caused such an expression and his insides turned icy.

It was Dean, but it wasn’t. Not the demon version, confident and black-eyed and snarky, nor even the anger-driven Mark of Cain version he’d been half-expecting. No, this thing was the stuff of nightmares. It looked half-decayed; brown and yellow teeth grinned out of the left side of its cheek where the skin had peeled away. One green, rolling eye glinted madly at them while the other hung by the optic nerve halfway down its neck. The hair had been pulled out in clumps, leaving raw-looking red patches. Its clothes could barely be called that, a few rags clung to its form, frayed and ignored. Great flaps of leathery skin had been pulled from the main frame of the thing’s body in various places, exposing the jagged points of ribs and pulsing, torn muscle that oozed dark, sluggish blood.

The Dean-shaped-creature shuffled towards them, bringing with it the putrid stench of rot and sickness and a palpable, striking _intent_. It dragged behind it a long, curved knife which gleamed sickly in the yellowed light as it scraped along the floor. It didn’t seem to be trying to hurry, but it moved with the terrifying surety that it would catch up with its prey. It laughed again, that same soft sound as its one working eye landed on each of them in turn.

Sam could only stare at the thing in horror. When it laughed, he could _see_ the vocal cords vibrate with it, strings of them falling out of place like snapped hair on a cellist’s bow. Its dangling eyeball swung obscenely with every step while the other fixed on him greedily. _It wanted him_. Sam thought. This creature that knew only pain wanted him to die screaming. It wanted to tear pieces from him and devour his agony. It—

“Sammy, come on. We’re leaving.” Dean was there, his brother with the panicked voice and the two eyes and the warm hand tugging on his elbow. His mind snapped back into itself and he stumbled a few steps after Dean before halting, his brain whirring over the past few minutes, catching up after that thing had driven everything but fear from his mind.

“Wait! Dean, we can’t.”

“What are you talking about?” Dean said without really listening, urging him further towards the stairs and their only exit, “You heard young you, we’ve gotta go.”

“But Chuck wants us out. So that means the answer of how to stop all this has gotta be in here somewhere!” Sam tried to veer off towards the library but Dean yanked him back and roughly shoved him at the stairs instead.

“We don’t know that!” Dean yelled, looking back; Sam followed his gaze to watch as young Sam stepped into the path of the approaching creature, downed the contents of the silver flask and then threw it aside. The unfiltered terror in Dean’s eyes as he saw that happening scared him more than anything else. His brother turned back to him, his eyes shining with what might have been tears. “Sammy, I promise you, we cannot fight that thing and win. Memorising all the books in this place won’t help if we get dead. _Please_.”

It was the plea that did it, the way that Dean was immediately backing down from this fight, the crack in his voice. Clearly, Dean knew something that Sam didn’t about the thing behind him. At least, that’s what he told himself. Though in reality it was more to do with the casual way the Dean-creature shrugged off the tremendous amount of power his young self had channelled its way, the fluid motion as it brought that blade up, _through_ the kid’s thigh and up some more, not even stopping when it hit the bone of pelvis.

A stinking mixture of blood and stomach acid and whatever was in the kid’s intestines splashed to the ground in a torrent as young Sam screamed, then gurgled as the creature leaned in and _bit_ at his jaw, getting the jut of his rotting teeth right in the seam below his ear and _ripping._ Teeth, the thing’s and young Sam’s, dropped into the pool of gore like pebbles as the thing shaped like his brother pulled the lower half of the kid’s face clean off. It giggled now, breathier, more gleeful than the other laugh had been, more chilling by far. The overpowering stench hit him and he bolted up the metal staircase. Dean let him pass first before following, urging him faster. Sam hesitated on the balcony and looked down. The creature was slowly dismembering his still-gurgling younger self with seemingly no purpose other than because it wanted to. When the door opened it paused for a second and then, with deliberate slowness, rolled its head around to look directly at him and smile though its orange-stained teeth.

Sam gagged and made no further protest as Dean pushed him out, though he did stoop to grab one of their emergency go-bags by the door.

As soon as the heavy iron slammed shut behind them, there was a strange whirring, and then a clunk, and Dean cried out and dropped the key as it began to melt in his hand.

“What the—” Sam started to say.

“No!” Dean yelled, running back at the door and slamming his fist into the metal. “Son of a bitch locked it down. And we can’t override it manually without the key.”

“Then he did us a favour,” Sam said, spitting out the bile building in the back of his throat. “You think this’ll hold it?”

Dean didn’t answer, he was already sprinting around the side of the bunker. Sam made to follow but before he even turned the corner Dean was storming back in his direction.

“Baby’s in there!” he raged. “Goddamn asshole fuckwad shut down the whole freaking thing! All our weapons, our IDs, our clothes, the freaking _gun_. Every goddamn book that could’ve helped us out, they’re all in there.”

“With that thing.” Sam said, glancing fearfully at the door. He’d seen shit that would send most people mad; he’d seen and been involved in torture reserved for the worst horror movies; he’d been elbow-deep in gore and he’d seen and killed monsters and gods and powerful beings of all kinds, but that had been something else entirely. “Dean, what—”

Dean held up a hand and leaned against the wall, breathing hard and heavy and shuddering. “Not now, Sammy,” he said. “Please, just… not now.”

Anger flushed his face and he folded his arms, glaring at his brother, “ _Y_ _ou_ were the one who dragged us out of there, remember? You don’t get to sulk about it.”

“I dragged us out of there so that we could come back _later,_ ” Dean rounded on him. “But there’s no way back in, Sam. Without the key, we can’t manually override the lockdown and even if I could jerry-rig something, I’m pretty sure God would interfere to make it not work and it’s _my_ fault Baby’s stuck in there. I shouldn’t have moved her this morning, I shouldn’t’ve—”

But Sam had exactly zero patience for Dean’s self-loathing spiral right now.

“What was that thing, Dean? It was you but… but you’ve never been like that. I think I’d _remember_ if you were ever like that.”

Dean looked up at him with haunted eyes and seemed to sense that Sam was not in the mood to be brushed off.

“Hell.” His voice was a splintered thing, quiet and fearful. “That’s what I became in Hell, what Alastair carved me into.” He shuddered.

Sam didn’t know what to say to that.

“I remember being it,” Dean continued. “I remember craving pain, I remember loving the way it felt to cause pain; to rip and to claw and to slice. It was the best high I’ve ever had. But even then there was a part of me, the tiniest part of me that I thought would still be human enough to hold back if I ever saw you down there.” He buried his face in his hands, muffling his next words, “guess I was wrong.”

Sam reached out to rest a hand on his brother’s shoulder. There was nothing else he could think to do. His mind churned with his own confrontation. His younger self had been idealistic and naïve but he was pure in a way that Sam missed, even infected with demon blood. Young Sam still truly believed that he could save the world.

“We should head into town,” Sam said, shouldering the duffle bag; all that they had left in the world it seemed. “There’s gotta be at least one ID in here, a card too. We can get a motel and figure out our next move.”

Dean grunted sullenly, but pushed away from the wall and made to follow all the same. They hadn’t even taken three steps however when headlights blared out between the trees and an engine rumbled as gravel crunched under tyres. Sam raised a hand to shield his eyes, blinking rapidly until the car swung around to a fluid stop and the lights vanished, leaving Sam momentarily blinded as the door opened and a petite figure stepped out.

“Hello boys,” trilled a delicately accented voice. “I have a riddle for you. When’s a ghost not a ghost?”

“Errr...” Sam said, brilliantly.

“When magic doesn’t kill it!” Rowena seethed, slamming the door of her sleek carmine red Duesenberg SJ Coupe. She looked bone-tired. Her dress was patterned with dried clumps of dirt and her red hair had less bounce than usual. “I had to dig up a grave! _Me_! So until I have taken advantage of your excellent water pressure, I’m not even going to ask why you both look like you’ve been beating the stubborn out of each other.”

“Yeah, about that,” Sam said, nodding to the car. “Can we get a ride? We’re kinda...”

“The bunker’s been repossessed. In kind of a literal sense,” Dean finished for him. “We’re gonna need a motel.”

The pure indignation on Rowena’s face made Sam suddenly very glad that she was here. At least there was _something_ that could still make him smile.


	4. Opening the Phone Lines

It really was the height of bad manners, Rowena thought as she pulled into the parking lot of the hotel—with a _h_ —to beg her for a lift into town, _after_ the day she’d already had, mind you, and then spend half an hour _bitching_ at her, all because she decidedly did not want to spend the night in a cockroach-infested, mouldy _motel room_ that smelled like stale beer and someone’s old, unlaundered socks.

At least, _Dean_ had bitched at her, Sam—always the wiser of the two—kept silent. Rowena glanced over at him as he shifted next to her, narrowly avoiding planting an elbow into her ribs. The car was much too cramped for one so gangly and it was amusing to watch him shift uncomfortably every few seconds, as though if he just twisted the right way he might conjure some decent leg room. It would be _more_ amusing however if he wasn’t shoved right up next to her by his brother on the other side. He smelled like blood and sweat, which made her wrinkle her nose, and he kept jostling her arm while she drove. For a two-seater car it was a miracle that they fit at all.

“I still don’t understand why we had to drive four towns over to find a bed.” Dean groused from behind Sam.

“Believe me, dear, this is far from ideal,” Rowena shot back primly, tossing her hair and killing the engine. “It’s only three stars.”

She promptly shut the car door behind her, purely so she could watch the brothers tumble out the other side in a mass of limbs and curses. She hid her smile by brushing the worst of the dirt from her dress before they straightened up.

“You boys get the bags, I’ll get us the room. My treat. There are wet-wipes in the small blue one, at least try and get _some_ of the blood off won’t you?”

With that she tossed them the keys, turned on her heel and swept into the foyer. It was clean at least, if not as lavishly decorated as she preferred. She was handed a pamphlet on the hotel’s many attributes—of which only the spa mildly interested her—and given two keys by the time the Winchesters deigned to join her.

“How long did you think you’d be staying with us anyway?” Dean grumbled, lugging two suitcases and a large pink holdall. Sam had the remaining case and his own ratty duffle.

“As long as necessary.” She held out her hand. “Keys?”

Sam dropped them into her palm with a smile and she stowed them in her handbag.

“And here’s yours,” she said, giving him one of the cards for the room. “I splashed out on a suite.”

“Of course you did.” Sam said mildly, though that smirk made her narrow her eyes.

“There’s nothing wrong with indulging in a little luxury,” she scolded. “Perhaps if you tried it sometime you might dislodge those sticks shoved up your behinds.”

“And where did you get the money for this ‘little luxury’?” Dean snapped as Rowena pressed the button for the elevator. “We can’t all seduce rich old douchebags.”

“Not with that attitude.”

There was a _ding_ as the elevator doors opened, and Rowena stepped aside to let an elderly couple out.

Dean reddened in a most satisfying way and they all piled into the elevator. Sam pressed the button for the top floor and the doors closed smoothly.

“My point stands, boys. You could do well for yourselves if you wanted to. And if Dean doesn’t think his face is up to par then there are plenty of valuables in the bunker that would fetch a pretty penny.”

Dean spluttered, reddening even further.

Sam huffed, “Yeah, and some of that stuff is also incredibly dangerous. It’s safer where it is.”

“And thus you resign yourselves to poverty.” Rowena stepped out onto the plush carpet of the eighth floor and smiled. “Come along.”

“Not your freaking bellhops, witch,” Dean grumbled. He struggled a little with the cases, but followed all the same. As obedient as a puppy, that one. Just the right level of old-fashioned to feel obligated to carry a lady’s bags. Not that he would hesitate to punch her in the face if she were to betray him.

Rowena found their room easily, _The Lavender Suite,_ and swiped the key card. The little light turned green and she opened the door wide and flipped on the light.

It was large enough she supposed, and did indeed smell of lavender, which was pleasant. The view over the town left something to be desired though, and there was no balcony. The main room was a touch plain for her tastes but it would suffice for a night or two while they regrouped. The kitchenette consisted of a mini-fridge, a counter with two cupboards underneath, a basket with a selection of tea, and a coffee machine. There were several framed pictures of lavender fields on the walls and a bunch of fresh lavender cuttings in a vase beside the phone.

“Nice room.” Sam said, lowering his duffle bag and awkwardly nudging it behind the sofa with his foot, as though embarrassed by the ratty material cluttering up such a tidy space. As he should be, that thing looked like it had been gnawed on by a pack of werewolves and stitched back together with dental floss, which, knowing the Winchesters, might actually be the case.

Dean dropped Rowena’s cases with much less care, “Yeah, if the world doesn’t end we’ll have to come back sometime.” He ignored her squawk of protest the bags landed with a heavy _thunk_ on the floor. 

Rowena snatched up her bags and moved further into the suite, grumbling. Nothing had better be damaged; she had some delicate glassware in one of the cases and some easily-crushable plants for emergency spellwork. It would be just like a Winchester to destroy something only to find out later that it was essential to whatever plan they threw together last-minute.

“Leaning a little heavy into the theme,” she muttered to herself as she wandered through, though she had to admit it the light purple walls went well with the soft grey carpet. There was a master bedroom with an en-suite that she would be claiming, of course, and another room with twin beds for the boys. Good. Precisely the reason she’d asked for a suite. She hated sharing her sleeping space. The bedsheets were lavender coloured, of course. She rolled her eyes. She didn't mind the consistency, and there were definitely _worse_ themes for a hotel room than a pretty flower and a nice smell, but it felt a little… old ladyish, like she should be withered and hunched over, her hair grey and wispy, showing all of her 300 years in the lines on her face.

She shuddered and headed for the en-suite (lavender shower curtain, lavender scented products, grey tile). There was dirt under her nails and grit in her dress and it was unpleasant and uncomfortable and she didn’t _have_ to bear it any longer, so she wouldn’t. She stripped, sighing with relief when the material of her clothes was no longer rubbing grains of dirt against her skin. She eyed it critically; it was deep green so the dirt on it wasn’t too noticeable, added an earthy pattern to it really, but it was ripped in several places and the hem was a ragged mess. Perhaps having it cleaned might be more trouble than it was worth. It was a nice dress made of thin velvet, long-sleeved and high collared and tastefully slinky, perhaps a little too warm for the weather, and perhaps a little old-fashioned; certainly impractical for ghost hunting. But it was a very nice dress. She turned away and resigned it to be a problem for later, instead wiping her face free of make-up before stepping into the shower.

The water pressure was heavenly and she sighed into it, the water turned to just the right side of scalding. She hoped the world wouldn’t end if only for more moments like this, when everything outside of the shower stall fell away into unimportance.

She dug under her nails first, hating the constant pressure of filth between nail and finger, and then she scraped through her scalp, scratching free the dirt that had made a home in her hair. She took her time, lathering the shampoo, being generous with the conditioner, using the complimentary loofah to scrub delicate, lavender-smelling bubbles over her skin. She hadn’t felt anxious before, but this calmed her anyway and when she finally turned the water off and reached for a fluffy towel she felt better.

She padded out of the en-suite and rifled through her suitcases, pulling out a comfortable set of pajamas and her favourite soft robe. She didn’t need to bother keeping up appearances for the Winchesters. They knew how powerful she was. And besides, she doubted that she would be required for anything action-based tonight. Yawning, she dressed and found a comb to pull through her hair before scrunching at it with the towel. It would still leave the robe a little damp but it was thick enough that it didn’t matter and she just didn’t have the energy to bother with a hairdryer.

She exited the room a little sadly, knowing that her few minutes of peace were over. Business talk with the Winchesters always had a way of setting her on edge.

Back in the main room the brothers were trying not to look awed, as though this was as fine as fine got. It was a little sad really; the bunker, while armed to the teeth and arguably one of the safest places on earth, lacked a lot of very basic comforts. Sure, over time the boys had added things and moved things and made it their own but it wasn’t exactly _homey,_ what with all the echoing tile and the lack of natural light and long, suffocating hallways. Everything in it was built for function and there was very little to make living there even a tad more pleasant.

Sam was the only one who had bothered with the wet-wipes it seemed. Dried blood was crusted in Dean’s hair and down the side of his face and he winced if he moved too quickly. Sam was barely better off; although the blood on his face was gone he had a large bruise beginning to purple on his jaw and red soaked into his shirt. It was a miracle they hadn’t been stopped by security on the way up, though seeing as Rowena had been the one who booked the room, the boys hadn’t actually had to interact with anyone.

Rowena wondered if she should use that term anymore, ‘miracle’. It implied God’s intervention, and although it turned out that God _had_ been intervening a lot, it didn’t mean that was something worth praising him for.

She’d told Dean that she was uninterested in having a crisis of faith and that was true, but it was very strange to her that God was even something to consider at all. Not that she hadn’t believed; she’d believed in Lucifer after all, even before she’d met him and loved him and hated him and been killed by him _twice,_ and logic dictated that you couldn’t have the first fallen angel without the one who cast him down so the idea of God had never been a problem, but the idea of God _being_ a problem simply hadn’t occurred to her. She’d figured he was too busy sitting on a cloud somewhere, listening to and laughing at the prayers he received, bestowing blessings and plagues at a whim and ordering around his army of feathered sycophants… apparently not.

Sam must have caught her movement in his periphery because he turned, and then did a double take, a small, almost mocking smile teasing at his mouth.

“What? A girl not allowed to be comfy?” she said haughtily, settling herself into the chair at the end so that she could watch the two of them without too much neck strain.

“Not at all,” Sam said, though the smirk remained. She narrowed her eyes at him.

“So do you want to go first or shall I?” she asked, looking between them. “I vote you, seeing as anything that can keep Dean from his car is probably a more formidable foe than a magic-immune ghost.”

The brothers looked at each other, and then were silent for almost fifteen whole seconds while they had one of their wordless conversations that were so irritating to be around. Rowena huffed impatiently and crossed her arms. Rudeness, pure rudeness. She could _feel_ them editing their story, cutting details that might be important because they didn’t trust her. She was _here_ wasn’t she? At the end of the bloody world. Instead of finding somewhere to hunker down and wait the whole thing out she had chosen to _help;_ and here she was, sitting at a table while the man that would kill her and his brother decided what she deserved to know.

“God invaded the bunker with evil versions of ourselves,” Dean said eventually. “They chased us out.”

“What a rich tapestry you weave.” Rowena said, rolling her eyes, “I’m positively drowning in detail. You couldn’t elaborate just a wee bit more, could you?”

Dean’s glare was a little more venomous than she expected. Not in the mood to joke then, fine.

“Him as a soulless douchebag and me as a demon,” he snapped. “They showed up and tried to kill us. The details aren’t important.”

Rowena noticed the way that Sam shifted uncomfortably in his seat, refusing to meet her eyes. There was clearly more to it, but it was something that neither of them wanted to discuss with her. She pursed her lips at that, but comforted herself with the notion that if it became relevant, they would tell her. She was sure she’d earned _that_ much trust at least.

“Fine,” she said waspishly. “Then I guess it’s my turn.”

She launched into an explanation of _her_ day, starting with getting off the phone with Dean and ending in her car, covered in grave dirt. She told them how the ghost hadn’t reacted to salt (she didn’t have any iron handy so as to its effectiveness she had no idea) and her usual method of a banishing spell had barely had any effect, instead she had had to create a magical barrier around the grave so she could dig it up without being disturbed, a barrier designed to keep out _people,_ not spirits.

“In life he was a bank teller, died of old age about six months ago. Nothing extraordinary about him. I don’t know why he was a ghost at all really but the blasted thing almost broke my arm.”

It hadn’t been a pleasant experience. When her original banishment spell failed the old man had grinned at her and tossed her aside with considerable force. It had only been her shield charm that protected her when she slammed into the wall and even that couldn’t make it not hurt. The _Winchesters_ might be used to such things, dense as their skulls were, but she was not, nor did she want to be.

“But burning the bones worked?” Dean asked.

“I think so. It went up in flames with the usual screaming, writhing, etcetera.” She flapped a hand dismissively. “But my banishment spell did practically nothing. It’s actually a kinder way to go about it, you know, if ghosts actually _feel_ it when they’re burning up.” She shuddered. Fire was a horrible way to die.

“What does it usually do?”

“Expels them from this plane,” she said, bringing one leg up onto the chair so she could rest her chin on her knee. “Where they go after that I’m not sure. The Veil perhaps? Heaven or Hell? Not really my concern.”

She’d thought it had worked though, that was the thing. The spirit had vanished for almost a minute before reappearing.

“The Veil’s just Purgatory for ghosts, right?” Sam asked, and Rowena could practically see the gears churning in his brain to make sense of the puzzle. “Where they hang out when they can’t affect things on this side.”

“Pretty much,” Dean said. “But only for the souls that can’t move on. Violent deaths, unfinished business, that kind of thing. Why would a guy who died of old age and presumably with no hinky skeletons in his closet...” he glanced to Rowena who shook her head to confirm, “say no to his reaper?”

“I dunno,” Sam said with a shrug, “but it does happen, you know, probably always has. People get scared of what’s next so they’d rather stick with the world they know, I guess.”

“You think it’s a coincidence? Really?” Dean’s face scrunched in his incredulity.

Sam shot him a look of flat irritation. “I’m just saying that one unusual ghost isn’t a pattern and it doesn’t actually tell us anything.”

“Chuck’s been dictating every decision we ever made but this ghost is just too random?”

“That’s not true!” Sam said hotly, slamming his hands down on the table. Dean and Rowena both stared at him.

“Slight overreaction there, Samuel,” Rowena said carefully.

Sam swallowed and ran both hands through his hair. “It’s not true,” he repeated, quieter now. “Our choices were our own. I have to believe that, I _have_ to.”

“Well of course they were,” Rowena said briskly. “God just manipulated the circumstances so that you’d make those choices.”

“Sure, _that’s_ comforting,” Dean muttered, looking just as put-out at the idea that their free will hadn’t been all that free after all.

“No,” Sam said, looking up at Rowena with a small smile. “It is. Thanks.”

She inclined her head.

Dean groaned and stood. “I need coffee if we’re gonna keep talking, anyone else?”

“Yeah.”

“Tea for me, Earl Grey if they have it. One sugar.”

While Dean busied himself with their drinks, Rowena and Sam sat in companionable quiet. Rowena picked at her chipped nail polish while Sam stared out of the window at the muggy lights of the town.

“How has no one else noticed?” He asked after a moment. “Why is the end of the world so quiet?”

“T. S. Eliot had it right after all. Not with a bang and all that.”

“Yeah, but _why_? Why doesn’t Chuck want everyone to know?”

“Mass panic must give him a headache,” Dean said, placing three steaming mugs on the table and dividing them out. “With all the prayers.”

“Maybe it’s our own private apocalypse, exclusive for the people in the know,” Rowena quipped. Despite knowing that Dean had meant it as a joke, the thought of God deliberately avoiding panic just so he wouldn’t have to listen to it disturbed her. She took a sip from her mug and sighed at the slight burst of citrus on her tongue. “At least there’s tea.”

“Or maybe he’s barely started,” Sam said, turning away from the window and holding his fingers around the mug to warm them. “Maybe we can head this thing off before anyone else becomes wise to it.”

“We’ve done it before.”

“Yeah.” Sam didn’t sound convinced.

“We’ll figure it out.” Dean said, in the kind of tone that sounded like he was only saying it from lack of any other words. “Are there any phones in that bag?”

“Gotta be at least one.” Sam said, standing and going to the duffle. “Who are we calling?”

“Jody first,” Dean said. “Then everyone else. We won’t be getting updates to our regular numbers and we need to tell them all that the bunker’s out of commission.”

“Cas too?”

Rowena smirked into her mug at the way Dean’s jaw clenched. He’d always been that way about the topic of Castiel, extra protective, extra defensive, extra angry.

“Yes, Sam. Cas too.”

“You haven’t, you know, been in touch?” Sam asked with the slightest gesture to his head. Dean flushed.

“Jody first,” he repeated gruffly.

Xxx

A few minutes later the beverages had been drunk and a burner phone was ringing out in the middle of the table. Sam and Dean had hunched over towards it, their expressions tightening further the longer there was no answer.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Rowena said, though she was sure of no such thing. She’d never met Jody but the boys talked about her she was like a second mother, a capable hunter and a strong woman, someone worthy of respect and deference. She, and those girls she looked after, especially Claire, were clearly dear to them.

Dean looked like he was about to snap at her but there was a click from the phone and he was diverted when a curt, tired-sounding voice answered.

“Sheriff Mills.”

“Jody!” Sam said, the both of them visibly deflating with relief. “Are you okay?”

“Sam! Thank God… or… y’know, whoever. We’ve been trying to get a hold of you.”

“You and...”

“Donna and the girls,” Jody said. “We were worried, Sam!”

Rowena smiled at the maternal tone, evidently Jody cared about them just as much as they did her.

“Sorry Jody,” Dean said, sounding appropriately mollified. “It’s been a crazy night.”

“Oh yeah? Do tell.”

The brothers looked at each other again and had another, much shorter, silent conversation while Rowena glowered at them, unnoticed.

“Basically, the bunker’s locked down,” Sam explained. “We can’t get back in and we wouldn’t if we could. Chuck sent in some troops.”

“You boys okay?” was the immediate question.

“Yeah, Jody, we’re fine.”

“So what does it mean, the bunker being out of bounds and all?”

“It means we’re currently staying in the Ritz,” Dean said lightly.

Rowena scoffed. “Oh please, hardly.”

“Is that Rowena?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, so they _do_ talk about me. Good to know.”

“You’ve come up.” Jody’s tone was polite but reserved. Clearly not all of her good deeds had made it to the sheriff’s ears.

“Rowena’s on our side in this thing,” Sam injected. “You can trust her.”

Dean snorted loudly.

“Well she’s gotta be, right? I mean, it’s our side or oblivion,” Jody said briskly. “What else?”

Sam pressed his lips together a moment before answering and the resentful look he shot Dean spoke volumes. “It means there’s probably something in there that can stop him.”

“But you’ve no idea what.”

“None at all,” Sam said, at the same time Dean said, “Oh, we know what it is.”

“I do love it when they talk at the same time, don’t you?” Rowena said to the phone as Sam fixed his brother with a frown.

“What are you talking about?” Sam asked, “We have no idea what the answer is.”

“The gun, Sam. It’s gotta be the gun.”

“This would be the anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-too gun?”

Dean snorted, “No offence, Jody, but we’re not calling it that.”

“What makes you think it’s the gun?” Sam said, confrontational now, as though this was an old argument. Or an ongoing one.

“What makes you think it’s not?” Dean shot back. “It’s the only thing that we know _for sure_ that can even put a dent in the guy.”

“He could have healed from that instantly,” Sam snapped. “He didn’t exactly stick around to show us how it worked and it’s not as though we can _experiment_ with it!”

“Boys, _boys,_ will ye both take a breath? The fact remains that _whatever_ the thing was that Chuck wanted to keep from you, it’s still locked up in the bunker. The gun or a book or a magical dishcloth, it makes no difference if we can’t get to it anyway.”

Dean’s hands curled into tight fists and he slid them back towards himself. Sam watched him, chewing on his bottom lip as though he had a counterpoint to that but wasn’t sure he wanted to make it. Rowena narrowed her eyes at him.

Jody sighed out a huff of static, “She’s right.”

“Of course I am.” Rowena said haughtily. She had found that a display of precociousness was sometimes needed to dispel the tension of a room.

The ghost of a grin passed over Dean’s face, but Sam shifted in his seat, still uncomfortable. So Sam Winchester had a secret. Rowena tried not to outwardly roll her eyes. Because _that_ always ended well. Still, it would do no good to confront him about it, not yet at least. So she said nothing, though she vowed to keep a closer eye on that boy from now on.

“So… how do we get back in?” Jody asked.

“We don’t.” Dean said, his voice hollow. “There’s a thing in there that we can’t fight. And even if we could… distract it long enough to grab the gun, that involves getting in and out. Which we can’t do without a freaking grenade launcher, which would leave an opening for that thing to escape.”

“Well, I never thought I’d see the day the Winchesters backed down.”

“He’s right, Rowena,” Sam said, turning his haunted eyes to her. “That thing...” he shuddered. “We can’t let it out. We can’t.”

“What is it?” Jody asked, sounding appropriately worried. Rowena felt it too, these boys had taken out the worst of the worst without batting an eye: demons, demi-gods, _actual_ gods, monsters in all forms. What could possibly be in the bunker that would terrify them like this? It wasn’t something that _she_ ever wanted to face, she was sure of that much.

Sam looked to Dean, who shook his head, a deep flush climbing up his neck.

“The most evil thing we’ve ever come across,” he said quietly. “Except for God.”

“Well that’s reassuring,” Jody said sarcastically. “Can the bunker hold it?”

“If we’ve got no way in then it has no way out. That’s probably the deal Chuck’s handing us.”

“Probably?” Rowena repeated.

Dean looked at her and shrugged. “That’s the best we’ve got.”

Sam sighed and rubbed at his temples, sounding exhausted. “The bunker is warded to the foundations _and_ it’s locked down. I’m pretty sure that Chuck is the only thing that can get into and out of there now, and as long as he wants that thing in there… there it’ll stay.”

“At least for now,” Dean said decisively. “We can come back to it later, when we’ve got… you know, any kind of plan.”

Sam worried at his lip again, looking faintly green. Clearly he didn’t relish the thought of going back to face whatever was currently guarding the bunker.

“It’s definitely closed for business then.” Jody said slowly.

“Yeah.”

They all took a moment to mourn the loss. It wasn’t Rowena’s favourite place by any means—not even top 50 really—but for all that it lacked in liveability, it _was_ useful. It had all the major spell ingredients, plus rarities for the more complex concoctions. She had been hoping to stock up during her visit.

“You don’t happen to have that huge library of lore with you, do ya?”

“Couldn’t fit it in the backpack,” Dean said wryly. “Why, you got something you need looking up?”

“Could be,” Jody said. “Though it’s nowhere near as scary as your thing sounds.”

“What is it?”

“A rebel vamp,” Jody said, then hurried to elaborate. “Not rebel as in staying out too late and dating the guy your daddy don’t like either, I’m talking about the kind of rebel that doesn’t play by the usual rules of how to take it down.”

“What do you mean?” Sam asked, frowning, leaning further forward now, fully focused on the phone.

“Thing was immune to dead man’s blood,” Jody said grimly. “We must’ve shot her with half a pint and it didn’t even slow her down.”

“Damn,” Dean said. “Head-chop still work?”

“Well she hasn’t got back up yet so it’s looking good on that front.” Jody said with a grin in her voice. “But she was tough, Dean. Stronger than a young vamp should be.”

“Well if it’s any consolation we have ghosts immune to magic too,” Rowena put in.

“ _One_ ghost.” Sam corrected, albeit half-heartedly. Apparently any hope of this being an isolated incident was long gone.

“So you’ve got no ideas?”

Sam grimaced, “Sorry Jody, not really. As long as we can still kill ’em… but put the word out anyway. Make sure everyone knows that hunting’s gonna get harder from now on.”

“’Cause it was such a breeze before,” Jody sighed. “Alright, will do. I daresay Claire will like the challenge if nothing else.”

“We’ll call if we learn any more. You stay safe out there. And tell the girls we say hey.”

“Course. Want me to keep you updated on any more weird?”

“Please.”

“Alright then. Take care.”

They all said their goodbyes before Dean tapped on the red button to end the call.

“Okay, so,” he said, and then he took a deep pull of his coffee. “Let’s start from the top, what do we have?”

“A pissed off God.” Rowena said.

“Evil incarnations of ourselves.”

“Ghosts that don’t work right.”

“And more of them,” Sam said suddenly. “Didn’t half our contacts say that there were more ghosts popping up?”

“Possibly monsters of all kinds with extra juice.” Rowena added, “I doubt it’ll only be the vampires.”

Sam’s lips pressed together into a thin line, then he reached for the phone and replaced it on the table after a moment.

_Calling Castiel_ the screen read.

After the first ring Dean hastily stood, mumbled something about taking a shower and bolted from the room.

“Coward.” Sam muttered, so quietly that Rowena was sure she wasn’t supposed to hear.

“Hello?” Came the deep, gravelly tone of the Winchesters’ favourite angel.

“Hey, Cas.”

“Sam?” There was a momentary pause. “This isn’t your number.”

“Aye, there’s been a bit of a to-do.” Rowena chimed in, smiling at the confusion in Castiel’s voice, which only increased when he next spoke.

“Rowena?”

“Hello, fish.”

“What happened?” Castiel said, urgency in his tone now, “where’s-”

“ _Dean_ chickened out of this conversation.” Rowena said with a smirk.

“We’re fine.” Sam said. Then he huffed, “well, if what we mean by ‘fine’ is—”

“Alive and no major injuries, yes, I’m aware of the Winchester definition.” The angel said curtly, though he sounded minutely more relaxed.

Rowena cleared her throat loudly, eyeing the large bruise on Sam’s face, the cut lip, the way he sat forward in his chair, refusing to put any pressure on his spine. Nothing life-threatening perhaps, but the boys weren’t exactly at their peak.

Sam glared at her, and then amended, “Okay, so we’re a bit beat up. The bunker’s out of bounds, Cas.”

There was a sharp intake of breath from the other end of the line.

“What do you mean?” Castiel asked, his voice shaky.

Rowena kicked Sam’s shin under the table and he winced, before apparently realising how what he had just said would sound and hurrying to correct himself.

“I mean inaccessible,” he said, and then he launched into the tale of what had happened, in a little more detail than the version he’d given Jody. He described the fight with their evil selves, but then clammed up about what had been the final thing to drive them out, despite Castiel’s persistent questions, though he did also mention the apparent new invulnerability monsters had.

“That’s… concerning.”

“Tell me about it.” Sam said, wiping a hand down his face, when he realised he’d just smeared blood over himself and tried to surreptitiously wipe his hand on his jeans and his face on his shirt. Rowena wrinkled her nose.

“Once Dean’s finished cleaning up it’s your turn,” she said waspishly. “This is a nice establishment, Samuel, you can’t go around looking like you’ve just been in a bar brawl.”

Sam waved her off, which she did _not_ like.

“It sounds like Chuck has changed the rules.” Castiel said carefully.

“Yeah, and not just for us.”

“Do you… do you need me to come back?”

There was a pause while Sam worried at his lip some more. He was going to end up with permanent teeth marks there if he wasn’t careful.

“Yes.” Rowena said firmly. “The more help the better really.”

“But only if you’re ready,” Sam said quickly. “We can handle this if you need more time. Honestly, other than hunting going haywire not much has really changed. We still have no clue what to do next, so actually gathering intel is probably most important right now. We need to know if this is just a few weird apples or if the whole tree’s mutated, you know?”

“So… you want me to keep hunting and report back?”

The angel was hard to read at the best of times but even _Rowena_ heard the relief through the phone speaker; just as she saw the disappointment on Sam’s face as he kept his own voice neutral.

“If that’s what you’d rather do. We’d be happy to have you back anytime, but this would help a lot too. So it’s up to you.”

“I think hunting sounds more useful,” Castiel said immediately. “I—I don’t… I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to come back just yet.”

“Och, why not?” Rowena said, waving a hand that Castiel couldn’t see. “There’s no denying that you’re more likely to stumble into the solution if you’re together.”

“You don’t understand—”

Which, of course, ignited a fury in her that only a 300-year-old witch could get when she was being condescended to.

“And what, pray tell, don’t I understand, Castiel?” she asked, her voice icy. “I know you’re not talking about the pain of losing a child.”

Silence fell, as she’d known it would. Smugly, she noticed the awkward way Sam coughed and looked away.

Castiel spluttered over the phone with all the tact of any man with a bruised ego. “You didn’t even _like_ Crowley.”

“And?”

“You tried to kill him, repeatedly.”

“And you tried to murder Jack in the womb, what’s the difference?”

“I thought that Jack was going to destroy the world!”

“And _Fergus_ had me imprisoned for several months. He was still my son and we had our moments of bonding and you should be grateful because he is the _only_ reason that I’m here right now and not in a palace in Marrakesh!”

It was true too, if Fergus hadn’t made her so curious about the Winchesters then she never would have included them in her various plans and then she would never have _somehow_ managed to forge her own bonds with them. Somewhere in between the demands for magical help, kidnappings and barbs exchanged, she’d actually grown to _like_ the brothers and their angel. They were infuriating and rude, narcissistic, interfering and angst-ridden beyond belief, but they were also loyal and brave, even thoughtful on occasion, and they fought with everything they had, which was as admirable as it was foolish.

Rowena ignored the sting that came whenever she thought about Fergus, _Crowley_. He hadn’t been a good son to her, but she hadn’t been a particularly good mother to him either so they were pretty much even. She’d hated him for a long time, hated how soft he’d become under the thumb of the Winchesters, hated what he represented to her, but in the end losing him still hurt.

Now that _she_ was under the thumb of the Winchesters she understood the appeal. Everything they did was so… _large_ , and it felt so important that it made you feel important to be a part of it. Rowena was accustomed to power, she was used to influential men asserting their power and she was used to using that for her own gain. She would gain nothing from the Winchesters other than their gratitude, the expectation of further favours and the feeling that she was on the right side, which wasn’t something that she ever thought she’d care about.

Castiel let out a gruff sound that she couldn’t put a word to before moving on with the topic, which made her want to curse something. Of course, the _angel_ was the one out of the three of them that had no compassion.

“I’ll let you know if I find a case, and I’ll try and stay within a day’s drive if you need me so keep me updated on your location and on… well… just keep me updated.”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “I’ll call you tomorrow or something, I think the next step is figuring out our next step, you know?”

There was a short pause then, during which Sam opened his mouth like he wanted to say something else, but then he glanced in her direction and closed it again.

Rolling her eyes, Rowena took the unsubtle hint and gathered up the mugs to place in the sink, leaving Sam to his little confession. Though she _was_ curious, and the kitchenette wasn’t exactly on the opposite end of the suite, and her hearing was _very_ good (and a little magically enhanced) so even over the clatter of mugs and the whoosh of water from the tap (which she may or may not have been hoping would affect the shower temperature) she heard Sam say:

“I don’t even know how to start on this thing, Cas. I have a feeling that it’s not gonna stay this quiet for long.”

“It doesn’t need to be quiet,” Cas replied in a softer tone. “We just need to solve the immediate problem.”

“How to kill God?”

“I didn’t say it would be easy.”

Sam snorted. The laugh of someone surprised by humour when they really didn’t feel like laughing.

“No, Sam, killing Chuck isn’t the immediate problem. If you want to gather intel, perhaps you should find a case too. There are people out there who still need immediate help; whether or not we stop the apocalypse won’t matter to them if they aren’t here to see it, and the more information we can get the better. At the very least it’s something to do.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I guess we should experience these new ghosts ourselves. Thanks, Cas.”

“You’re welcome. Just make sure you let yourselves heal before you go searching. And be careful. I’m not there to heal you this time.”

“Got it. You be careful too, we’re not watching your back this time.”

“Sam, I’m perfectly capable—”

“I’m not saying you’re not,” Sam interrupted quickly. “We just care about you, okay? Stay safe.”

“You too, Sam.”

By the time Rowena returned with freshly washed and filled mugs the phone was black and silent and Sam looked grim but a lot calmer than he had at the beginning of the call. It was easy to forget amidst the ever-shifting tension and drama between the elder Winchester and the angel, that Castiel had struck up a deep friendship with Sam as well. Rowena thought it was actually a little unfair on him, what with Dean calling all the shots about when the angel got to stay or go.

Not that she was complaining at this particular moment. Castiel might be a pleasant thing to look at but he was just as stubborn and pig-headed as the humans he fell for. Dealing with them one at a time was bad enough.

A few minutes later Dean came back in, a lilac towel wrapped around his waist and a positively _delightful_ reddening face.

“Forgot to grab some clean stuff,” he mumbled, gesturing to the bag, which Sam promptly tossed his way.

“Oh, don’t cover up on my account.” Rowena said, trailing her eyes up the expanse of tanned and toned (and bruised) skin.

Dean blushed deeper, “Quit ogling me, witch,” he snapped.

Rowena just tipped him a salacious wink and watched the boy practically run out of sight again. She chuckled at Sam’s raised eyebrow.

“Don’t look at me like that, Samuel. I’m just teasing,” she said, sipping primly at her tea. “Besides, he’s not really my type.”

“Not rich enough?” Sam asked with an amused quirk to his mouth.

“Nowhere near,” she said with a sigh, “plus, he seems like high maintenance.”

Sam snorted into his own mug. Rowena smiled at him and placed her tea down on the table.

“How are you doing anyway, Sam? You’ve been through quite a lot in the past few days: losing Jack, God turning out to be the bad guy, the angel fluttering off somewhere, and technically you’re homeless now. Can’t be easy.”

Sam looked surprised at the question, as though he hadn’t really thought about it.

“Err...” he said, “alright, I guess… I mean, not great to the power of whatever but, you know, coping.”

“Right. Which is why you’ve been snapping at your brother at every opportunity.”

“Don’t I have the right to be pissed at him?”

She shrugged, troubled by that. Sam’s anger was a vicious thing and being on the receiving end of it was all kinds of disquieting. She was aware, of course, that Sam was angry at Dean a lot, but it was usually surface-level, more irritation than true anger. The kind of frustration that came when your brother did something stupid and dangerous because he didn’t realise how much other people cared about him. This was different than that, darker. It was the kind of anger that she recognised in herself, the kind that demanded revenge.

When Dean came back in, dressed but grumbling and still red, Sam excused himself to shower too, making a point of picking out some spare clothes from the bag before heading down the short hallway.

Dean sat back down in his chair and adopted a fake-casual tone.

“So what’d Cas say?”

Rowena tried not to smirk. Of course that was the first thing out of his mouth.

“Just that he’s going to hunt on his own to help gather information and that he’d stay close, just in case.”

She pretended not to notice the way Dean looked up hopefully at that last part.

“Yeah?”

“From what I recall,” Rowena confirmed. “Why were you so reluctant to speak to him?”

Dean scowled, “I wasn’t—”

“Oh please,” she said scornfully, “someone really needs to tell you: you’re not as good at hiding your emotions as you think you are.”

“Shut up.” Dean snapped, reddening once more.

“Eloquent as always.”

“You’re… always.”

Rowena didn’t even dignify that with a raised eyebrow.

They lapsed into silence, less comfortable than a silence with Sam was. Dean’s silence seemed to leak out of him, gathering into that ever-present stormcloud over his head. Rowena got the distinct impression that he was working himself up to say something, but whether he would get there before his head exploded was something that she didn’t have the patience to find out.

“Are we done for the night?” She asked, standing. “I’m not sure there’s much more we can discuss and we’d all benefit from a good night’s rest.”

“Yeah,” Dean said, and then, “any chance you could help me ward this place up a bit?”

“Against _God_? Not even I have that kind of power.”

Still, she helped him set some basic wards: undead things, demons, the usual. But when she suggested warding the place against angels Dean shrugged it off.

“There’s hardly any of ’em left anyway,” he muttered.

Rowena pursed her lips but finished the wards and headed to bed just as Sam emerged from the bathroom in a puff of steam, wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt and carrying his bloodied clothes in a tight bundle.

“Goodnight, Samuel,” she said, closing the door to her room behind her.

She was much too tired to try and figure out any of the last 24 hours right now. After pulling her cases from the bed and onto the floor she climbed between the lavender-scented sheets and hoped that it wouldn’t seem so bad in the morning.

  
  
Xxx 

Cas sat on his motel room bed and watched a cockroach scuttle its way from the dresser to a crack in the wall. The fact that he had needed this room at all was demeaning. The fact that he’d had to use the Winchesters’ money to pay for it even more so. It was only the thought that it wasn’t even really their money to begin with that soothed his ire.

He was exhausted; everything at the cemetery, the amount of grace he’d had to expend just to stay alive, burning Jack and then later healing the brothers, it had all taken far more out of him than it should have.

Jack was dead. Cas’ brain kept repeating that moment, Chuck’s fingers snapping, Jack’s head thrown back, his grace streaming out of him, burning, _dying_ and Castiel powerless to stop it.

He had sworn to protect him; he had promised Kelly, promised himself that he would do whatever it took to keep Jack safe. He had given up any possibility of happiness to save the boy’s soul, he had _thought_ he could talk Dean down.

But he had failed, and Jack was dead, and Chuck was still out there, manipulating everything to his own envy and pride and wrath. As it turned out, God had the seven deadly sins in spades.

He did feel bad for abandoning Sam like that though. He’d sounded so upset on the phone and Cas longed to be there to ease that. He already missed their easy camaraderie, the looks they’d share behind Dean’s back, the comfort of being similarly-minded people in the same place as a much more forceful personality. But in that cemetery it had felt like the weight of the cosmos had landed on him and he’d buckled, was _still_ buckling. He couldn’t go back to the Winchesters, couldn’t face Dean.

He was angry, furious even, and Dean was at least partially responsible for what had happened. If Dean had just _listened_ to him, tried to _talk_ to Jack instead of showing up with a gun that Cas had never seen before and revenge in his eyes… perhaps the ‘scene’ wouldn’t have been ‘dramatic’ enough for Chuck to barge in with an edit.

It was only after seeing Sam shoot Chuck that Cas realised what that gun did, and it made him all the more livid. Dean had been willing to kill Jack _and_ himself in one move. Chuck had wanted them both to die and Dean had been happy to play along. Even knowing that Dean had been manipulated didn’t help; considering all of Dean’s speeches about how family was the most important thing and that they could face anything together, he hadn’t even hesitated to set himself on a path to cleave their family in half. It felt like a betrayal of something core to Castiel’s existence, something that Dean had planted there in the first place.

And still, no matter that he was angry, no matter how hurt he felt, no matter that he’d left with the singular purpose of getting away from Dean and all reminders of what he’d done, he’d still promised Sam that he’d stay close. Still in the Winchesters’ orbit but not part of their lives. Perhaps it was better that way, watching from afar, the way a guardian angel should. He scoffed at that thought; he’d never been the guardian he thought he was, and he was barely even an angel anymore. All he knew was that he couldn’t abandon them entirely. Maybe all the angels and demons and other monstrosities had been right with their barbs, maybe the Winchesters had leashed him after all, only not with something as easy to break as a spell.

His hands balled together in his lap and the burble of a water heater parted the heavy silence. He sighed, deep and sad, and decided that he’d look for a case in the morning. He needed to sleep, and the thought coated his tongue sour.


	5. Toil and Trouble and Tailoring

Dean woke from troubled dreams to the sound of his brother’s. Sam whimpered and rolled over, the sheets dropping from the bed to puddle on the carpet along with one of the extra fluffed pillows that Sam had deemed ‘too much’ the night before. Dean checked the time, 7.16 am. Not bad actually, though he didn’t feel as rested as that amount of sleep should have made him.

He flung the covers back to stroll across the room and kick the base of Sam’s bed, causing enough of a vibration to rouse him, but not enough to flood his system with panic. Sam blinked, bleary and still fresh from a nightmare. Dean grinned down at him.

“Breakfast?” He asked, a little too brightly. “I wanna try out the room service.”

The only response was a groan.

“If you’re not conscious by the time it gets here, I’m eating your pancakes.”

Dean rummaged around in the duffle for a clean t-shirt and pair of jeans that weren’t stiff with dried blood, wincing as he bent over. The bruises he’d earned had bloomed into ugly purple splotches all over his torso. He had fingerprints stained in yellow on his arm and he knew he had dozens of small cuts on his back from that damn cabinet, though the red mark around his throat that he’d seen in the mirror last night had probably faded by now. There weren’t any injuries that would prevent him from fighting if he needed to, but he was unfamiliar with how to bend to avoid irritating them and kept jolting his position wrong while he dressed, drawing more than one pained hiss through his teeth. It seemed he’d been spoiled by Cas’ healings. He idly wondered if any of the cuts would scar. He hadn’t had a scar since Cas had wiped his own handprint from his shoulder, not one that lasted anyway.

They’d have to go to the nearest thrift store soon too, he thought. Their go-bags only had three sets of clothes each. They were for quick hunts, urgent ones, and there was only one blade and one gun, because they’d assumed that they’d always have the weapons in Baby’s trunk. Dean cursed himself again for moving her into the garage. It just… it felt weird to leave her out front now when there was plenty of space inside. Dean liked knowing that she was safe and dry in her own spot. He liked that she had found home there too. 

But apparently that was a luxury he shouldn’t have believed he could afford. He’d forgotten one of John Winchester’s first lessons: _Always have an out, Dean. Even if you think you’re safe, never let yourself get caught without an exit strategy._

Of course, they had the go-bag, at least Sam had had his head on straight. Dean had been too focussed on _out, out, out_ to even think about what came next. He should have grabbed the other one, then they’d have more clothes and at least one more gun, which always came in handy. But the sight of that… thing had fried something in his brain, short-circuiting to an immediate fear response. There had been no fight in him in that moment, only the screaming need to protect his brother, to get Sammy away, to not look that thing in the eye. But there had been another Sammy standing in its path, a younger Sam still baby-faced and innocent in so many ways, his eyes unshadowed by Hell, his shoulders not yet bowed under the weight that would be placed on them.

And he hadn’t even hesitated to practically slice him in half.

He shuddered as he made his way down the short hallway and into the main room to peruse the breakfast menu. It hadn’t been him, not really. _He’d_ been trying to push his brother towards the stairs at the time, but he’d seen it, he’d felt it. In a sick way he’d understood the pleasure that creature got from pain. He’d eviscerated hundreds of people like that, thousands. He'd taken them apart joint by joint just to hear how the screams changed tone. He’d already known he was a monster before that thing showed up.

But it had gone for Sam, which meant that _he_ would have gone for Sam, which meant that every comfort he’d tried to hold onto had been false, and the last pure speck of soul he’d thought he had was just as rotten as the rest of it. It had been over ten years since he’d been saved, since Cas had pieced him back together, but he would never be able to fix that. Even when he’d been a demon he’d had some restraint when it came to Sam, more wanting to show off how cool his new existence was than wanting his brother dead. He’d always been so sure that protecting Sam was his first instinct, deeper than the need to breathe; strip everything else away and he’d still have that.

But apparently not.

He called room service and ordered more food than was probably sensible while using someone else’s tab before hanging up and heading for the coffee pot. He wasn’t sure why it was eating at him so much. He wasn’t that thing anymore, hadn’t been for a long time. He still wanted to protect Sam so why did it matter? He didn’t know, only that it did, and that it had hit him harder than he’d been expecting.

Sam joined him a few minutes later, looking just as tired as he had before going to bed. His hair had become a singular tangle on one side where it had been scraped against the pillow while still damp. Probably take more than one pass of his finger-comb before it was all glorious lion-mane again, Dean thought smugly. Although he couldn’t be too happy about the fact that his brother looked like he’d had a pretty bad night, the familiar big-brother feeling of it brought a strange sort of comfort.

“Rowena still asleep?” He asked, glancing around the room and clearly seeing no witch.

Dean shrugged, “Probably. No need to set an alarm or anything, it’s not like we’ve got anything in particular to do.”

“Like take down God?” Sam said wryly, taking the coffee mug Dean passed him.

“Right.” Dean snapped his fingers. “Knew I’d forgotten something.”

Sam snorted into his mug.

“You know,” Dean continued, “I was kind of hoping that everything would fall into place after a few hours of sleep but… I still don’t know what the hell our next move is.”

Sam took a long drink of his coffee, looking thoughtful, and a little wary.

“Same as Cas and Jody, I guess,” he said. “Find a case, gather intel. What else can we do?”

“You feel like hunting now?” Dean asked, remembering the lost expression on his brother’s face the last time he’d broached the topic of finding a simple case.

“Not really. But it’s… it’s _something_ , you know? I can’t just wait around in a hotel room for Chuck to make his move, I’m tired of playing his game.”

“Yeah, I get that.”

“So I should look for a case?”

“Sure. Ghost though, if there’s one around. I wanna see what these new and improved versions can do.”

“You don’t believe what Rowena told us?” Sam said, frowning over the lip of his mug. It was funny, not too long ago trusting Rowena would have been the stupidest thing either of them could do, now Sam looked positively offended that Dean wouldn’t take her at her word.

“No, I do. I just wanna see it for myself. She said salt doesn’t work but she didn’t try iron, so we don’t know what that does or doesn’t do anymore. Or maybe she just _thought_ the salt hit the thing but it missed, or that ghost was an anomaly rather than the new normal. Either way, it can’t hurt to double check.”

“I guess,” Sam conceded. “It’ll be easier to figure out what we’re dealing with when we’ve got a first-hand account. Make it easier to figure out the new rules, you know?”

Dean scoffed. “Yeah. But I can't help wondering what the point of that is. The second we get a grasp on ’em, Chuck can just change ’em again.” He let out a sigh and glanced at the hallway to make sure Rowena wasn’t on her way. Her door was still closed but even so, Dean dropped his voice. “Don’t you think it’s kinda… hopeless?” He said, looking at his brother, silently begging him to understand that he wasn’t giving up, he just… he needed to say it. “I mean, we’ve spent our whole lives, more than thirty years learning what these things are and how to kill ’em to keep a fight fair between super strength and magic and whatever-the-hell-else kind of powers they can throw at us. And there have been thousands of hunters before us, learning this stuff, writing it down, passing it on since the beginning of freaking humanity. The bunker library’s full of journals to stab this thing seven times with a bamboo shard blessed by a Shinto priest, or to chop off that thing’s head, or to return that other thing to its own grave and trap it in with a specific kind of wood stake. And now none of that matters. History, _our_ history doesn’t mean shit anymore. Because of a whim? Because Chuck doesn’t care about that part of the story? Because he can just blink and things that we’ve known to be true, the things that Dad taught us and everything that we learned the bloody way, they’re just… wrong now.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Sam said, rubbing at his temples. “But there’s a reason for it, there has to be. There’s some kind of logic behind it that will help us find a solution.”

“Yeah. The logic is that it’s boring to watch us rely on the same tricks,” Dean said glumly. “And while we’re back to figuring out Baby’s First Haunting the apocalypse is still happening and we still have no clue how to stop it.”

“You’re right, it sucks,” Sam said with bite. “But whining about it isn’t going to help. We just have to deal with it, like we always do.”

Dean deflated a little at that. Sam was right. Getting mad wasn’t going to make anything better. He’d learned that the hard way, with Cas. It wasn’t lost on him how they seemed to have completely switched positions from the previous day, with Sam set on a course of action and Dean floundering for ideas, but a lot could change in a day. They’d lost the bunker with the gun and Baby inside and all their hard-won hunting knowledge was on shaky ground; it was a coin-toss as to whether any of it was still useful.

A smart knock at the door signalled the arrival of the food and Dean, being a simple man, immediately felt more hopeful with a plate of bacon and eggs in front of him. He’d always been better at the small picture anyway; give him a case and he could work it, they could figure out what it all meant later.

_If there_ is _a later,_ whispered a small voice in the back of his head.

Xxx

Rowena joined them sometime around mid-morning, perfectly put-together, complete with her usual dramatic eye make-up. She still fell on the leftover pancakes like a ghoul and devoured them in a time that left even Dean impressed.

“What?” She asked haughtily, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin. “I didn’t exactly have time for supper last night.”

Together they spent an hour or so searching through possible cases. Rowena didn’t want to go too far and rule the hotel out as a retreat, while Sam argued that staying in any place too long would just invite Chuck’s next move, whether or not the hunt was local. Dean backed Sam’s play, but also made the point that they weren’t exactly in top fighting shape, so maybe another night on a decent mattress would do them all good. Sam was reluctant, but agreed. They’d find the hunt today but set out tomorrow, and in the meantime they’d prepare.

Dean ended up browsing through the racks at a thrift store with Rowena complaining loudly about the smell, offering to buy him and Sam an entire new wardrobe if they could just leave.

“I know we were looking for ghosts, Dean,” she hissed at him, her eyes darting to the other—mostly elderly—patrons in the store. “But we might want to wait until these ones actually croak.”

“Okay,” Dean said, keeping his voice low as he turned to her with a couple of worn band t-shirts and some half-decent plaid folded over his arm, his patience officially run out. “You’re older than everybody in here and right now, it shows.”

Rowena’s offended gasp was worth the dirty looks they got from the people around them. Dean found a couple more pairs of jeans and went to pay; the shop assistant looked like he was fighting a smile, he had clearly heard Rowena’s griping and was pleased to see her now standing sulky and silent.

Dean tipped him a wink before taking the bag of stuff and leaving the store without looking back, knowing that Rowena would have no choice but to follow.

“I could hex you,” she said once she’d caught up. “That was rude.”

“No, what was rude was you insulting everyone in there. If we’re gonna be hunting, you don’t exactly wanna wear stuff that you care too much about getting dirty. Besides, weren’t you a peasant girl once? Get off your freaking high horse.”

Although most of the other people in there had been old ladies looking for a bargain, there’d been one guy looking through the winter coats with all the intensity of one who knew that his decision could mean life or death. Ever since Cas had confessed that he’d been homeless when he'd become human, sleeping on the streets and in abandoned buses, Dean began to notice them more. The people on the edge of society, waiting in line for a coffee with holes in their shoes and a battered backpack over one arm, sitting on the street with a cardboard sign or a dog on a chain, wandering around the public library with the air of someone pretending to look busy so they won’t be kicked out into the cold. He saw Cas in each of them and the guilt in his chest only increased. Sure, he’d slept rough more than a few times when he was younger, those times John would send him away with a fistful of bills and a target to hunt, when he had to decide if he’d rather be able to eat every day or get a motel room. Those weeks had sucked, but he’d always had a place to run back to. John had never exactly been pleased if Dean came back earlier than expected, shivering and starving, without the victory of having killed the thing, but he always took him back in, and then they’d usually go and finish the hunt together, building on whatever info Dean had managed to gather by himself.

Technically, he and Sam were homeless now too. The bunker was lost to them and Baby along with it, but _they_ had the luxury of contacts and fake credit cards; they had years of hustling under their belts and knew they could get along just fine. More than, if Rowena kept picking (and paying for) their accommodations. He hoped Cas had found himself somewhere decent too. He had a card of his own now, Dean had insisted he keep it with him, just in case.

Rowena just huffed. “That was a long time ago. I’ve worked too hard to stoop so low again.”

“Yeah, well, not everybody has magic powers.”

“And thank goodness for that.” Rowena said decisively. “Now, there has to be some kind of apothecary around here. I’m running low on a few things.”

“Google it.” Dean suggested while Rowena scanned the row of shops. There weren’t that many. It was a larger town than the few they’d passed through from Lebanon but it still wasn’t a city, one high street meant fewer people in the know, which was both good and bad in different ways. Still, witches were a global network, you could usually find one if you went looking. Not that he and Sam looked for them much. Dean hated witches with a passion (present company only sometimes excluded) but they were still human, more or less, so unless they got murdery they usually left well enough alone. Most witches knew to keep their heads down anyway.

Rowena craned her neck, glaring at the neat storefronts as though daring them to disappoint her. There were more than a few thrift stores and a large supermarket off on one end but as they walked further up Dean could practically feel the class change. He grew increasingly uncomfortable as the people turned from regular Joes to people in business suits and designer outfits, bluetooth pieces in their ears. They talked over each other to get in the last word about whatever deal they were trying to close, or their disappointing spouses, or how their boss was out to ruin their lives, clutching shopping bags and the backs of pushchairs, their expensive watches and jewellery flashing with every hand-to-the-chest fake laugh. Dean hated it, feeling exposed and clunky in his heavy-duty boots and worn plaid. Rowena on the other hand stood taller, her chin raised as she glided through the early afternoon crowd, knowing what she was looking for and how to navigate to get to it. Dean followed, glowering at everyone and shoving probably a little harder than was necessary if some dick tried to push past him.

“There!” Rowena said, though what she was pointing at, Dean couldn’t make out. He just followed the red hair until the pedestrians thinned out enough to see… what looked like an extremely expensive clothes shop.

“Seriously?” He muttered as Rowena reached for the door. “I doubt they sell sage and crystals here.” He glanced at one of the mannequins in the window and balked at the price tag of the sleek, sequined dress it wore.

The shop itself was all bright white tile and warm, eucalyptus-scented air. There were a few racks embedded into the walls but other than the desk for the till and a few very tempting-looking seats, the rest of the shop was bare.

Dean felt too hot all of a sudden and longed to itch at his collar. He didn’t belong here, in places like this, with his ratty old jeans and a thrift store bag dangling from one fist. He could already see the barely contained surprise on the faces of the four ( _four_! The freaking place was empty, who could afford to pay people to stand around and do nothing?) assistants behind the giant smiles and pencil-shaped skirts.

“Good afternoon, do you have an appointment with us today?” asked the woman at the till. Her dark hair was drawn back in a ponytail so tight it looked almost painful. She didn’t even glance at Dean.

“An appointment?” Dean wondered aloud. “Isn’t this a clothes store?”

“That’s correct,” said one of the assistants, though she didn’t elaborate on why an appointment would be necessary.

Dean decided to just let himself be confused. The assistants were all young, all beautiful, all slim and small-chested. Honestly, it made him feel a little bit sick.

“Of course, I do. The next o’clock.” Rowena said without missing a beat, which was even more confusing. It was just past three pm. Surely she wasn’t suggesting they wait around for fifty minutes for a dress fitting or whatever. Sam was going to be pissed.

“Of course.” The woman's smile fell into something a little more genuine and her stiff posture relaxed the smallest amount. She picked up the phone on her desk and punched in a series of numbers. After a few moments the headset flashed green and the woman looked up at the assistant who had spoken to Dean.

“Nicole, would you please take our guests to Isla’s office?”

The assistant who had spoken to him dipped her head.

“This way,” she said, heading towards the back.

Dean jogged a little to fall into step with Rowena.

“So this Isla is a friend of yours?”

“Never met her.” Rowena said, her glossy hair bouncing with each confident step. “But she’s got to have a decent amount of talent and power in witchcraft.”

“How do you figure?” Dean asked, incredulous. “Is this or is this not a freaking clothes store?”

“It is _and_ it isn’t.” Rowena countered with an irritating _I know better than you_ smile. “Do you really think a store this high-end could survive in a small Kansas town without a little magic? Getting deliveries alone would require a _lot_ of hassle for little reward. Plus, there was an aura around the place. The clothes are most likely the passion project serving as a front and the _real_ business is for people like me.”

“So… you don’t have an appointment.” Dean concluded.

Rowena chuckled, “You and your brother aren’t the only ones with code-words, Dean. The witch community has had to find ways of doing business without drawing the attention of your kind for centuries. Little occult shops selling crystals and Ouija boards to anyone with a few shillings are all well and good for those with no ambition, but places like this are more my style.”

“No kidding.” Dean muttered as they passed what looked like a store room filled with a dazzling variety of colourful fabrics. He had to admit the idea was impressive. Witches were pretty hard to track down as a rule, their suppliers damn near impossible. Unless a body showed up he and Sam didn’t usually bother looking too hard, and even then, as soon as the culprit was dealt with they didn’t stick around to uproot the rest of the coven. The more powerful ones would get the hell out of dodge anyway and the smart ones would either be scared straight or make sure not to do anything to make them a target. But novice or master, all witches needed spell ingredients. The bunker was well stocked but honestly, with Sam starting to take more of an interest in spellwork, and with Cas not exactly able to just pop back and forth between continents or eras to fetch stuff anymore, it certainly wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a supplier less than a day’s drive from the bunker.

But as useful as this new contact would be, he wished it was Sam here to do the negotiating instead. Something told him he’d have his work cut out with this Isla to get so much as a business card.

“Through here.” The assistant said, knocking twice on a plain white door but making no move to enter.

Rowena stepped forward, head high, and pushed the door open. Dean followed, Nicole, the assistant, did not.

Dean’s first thought was that the room looked a little too comfortable to be called an office. More of a study, if he was going to be pedantic about it. The cream carpet was thick under his boots, the walls adorned with framed certificates and book-heavy shelves made of the same honey-coloured wood as the desk. The two chairs on their side were leather and looked plush and Rowena wasted no time in lowering herself into one.

The woman sat at the desk was dark-skinned, her hair swept up in a complicated looking twist on top of her head. She looked around fifty, though among witches that didn’t necessarily mean anything. A kindly smile lit up her face but there was something shrewd in her eyes that reminded him with a pang of Missouri Mosley, the kind of eyes that always saw more than you expected them to. That kind of look had always made Dean uncomfortable, but on Missouri at least he’d never immediately thought _snake_.

“It’s so nice to see new faces,” she said airily. “I thought I knew all the witches in Kansas.”

“Oh, I’m just passing through,” Rowena said. “You must be Isla.”

“And you’re that witch who went on a rampage a while back, right? The one who started up that Supercoven thing.”

“Megacoven.” Rowena corrected, her voice turning a little icy. “You can call me Rowena.”

“Right. Let’s assume my invitation was lost in the mail then shall we, Rowena?”

Dean looked between the two smiling women, certain there was some kind of power struggle here that he couldn’t see. He couldn’t help but be a little impressed that Isla didn’t seem cowed, even knowing who Rowena was. She must have a formidable reputation of her own, or at least enough power to earn one if she chose to.

“You brought a hunter.” Isla said after a moment, those sharp eyes flicking Dean’s way, which he didn’t like at all. “That’s… unusual.”

“Oh, don’t you worry about Dean. He’s harmless, practically a pussy-cat.”

“Hey.” Dean growled. He debated taking the remaining chair but the idea of getting comfy with two witches, only one of which he kind of trusted, went against pretty much all his training.

“Dean...” The name rolled over Isla’s tongue like something tart. “You brought a _Winchester_ here?” There was definite animosity in her voice now and she made to stand, revealing that she was tall… like… _really_ tall, like almost _Sam_ tall, but Rowena intercepted.

“I can assure you we mean you and your business no harm,” she said quickly, glancing back towards Dean with a pointed look.

Dean cleared his throat. “Right. Actually, where me and my brother are usually based ain’t too far from here.” _Channel Sam, channel Sam,_ “We could use a supplier for some… hard to get ingredients that we might need. We manage a whole network of hunters. And in this line of work those kinds of connections could be… uh... lucrative.”

It was far from a perfect sales pitch, and Isla’s eyes narrowed.

“Your line of work being the systematic destruction of our kind,” she hissed. Yeah… definite snake. “I won’t be threatened in my own place of business. I’ve had dealings with your ‘network’ before. They make us hide like rats whenever they come into town, throwing their weight around, interrogating my people!” Dean could feel power radiating from Isla now and Rowena was looking at him like _he_ was supposed to negotiate them out of this situation. He didn’t even have time to glare at her. Why the hell had she even brought him here? His instincts said to go for his gun, but his brain said that they needed Isla, and also that the mere three witch-killing bullets he had were still in the bottom of the go-bag.

“Whoa, whoa. No threat.” Dean said, throwing up his hands in what he hoped was a placating gesture rather than the _back off_ warning he kind of wanted it to be. _Crap_ , he hated witches. “Look… you know who I am, you know that most hunters know who I am. I’ve got a lot of sway. If I tell my people that we get help from the witches in this town, they’ll leave you alone. As long as nobody starts dropping bodies, you won’t have to worry about hunters anymore.”

That seemed to placate Isla a little and the power around her faded as though it had never been.

“A mutually-beneficial business arrangement then,” she said. Her friendly smile fell back into place and she straightened up (Dean couldn’t help but notice, again, just how tall she was). “I can work with that.”

She made a sharp gesture to her left and the wall (proclaiming a doctorate in business and another in design) dissolved, revealing exactly what you’d think of if you thought ‘apothecary’. Only bigger. Freaking _huge_. Wall to wall shelves filled with bottles and jars of varying shapes and sizes. Bones of indeterminate origin, stacks of loose papers, thick liquid in vials, bunches of dried herbs suspended from the ceiling. With the scent of those came the smell of musty books and the kind of static on his tongue that he always associated with magic. The back of his neck tingled as Isla walked them over. Rowena rattled off a list of things that she needed and Isla fetched them one by one, laying them all out on a large table in the centre of the room.

Dean was content to be ignored for the moment. He watched the two women warily. The tension between them had vanished and now they were having an in-depth discussion on the properties of fairy wings in spells (apparently there were many, but they were very hard to come by which led them on to talking about some of the best substitutes). In less than five minutes, they seemed to have gone from potential rivals to best friends and Dean wondered if any of it was genuine.

“Now, I can’t just give you these things.” Isla said once all the items on Rowena’s list were sitting innocently on the table. “This is a business, you understand.”

“It’s not me you need to worry about, dear.” Rowena said, flashing a smile and a credit card. Of course the witches took plastic. “I warn you, the boys will try to pay you in favours.”

Isla folded her arms, a small frown creasing her otherwise blemish-free face. “That could be a problem.” She turned to Dean, not hostile anymore, merely a hard-ass businesswoman. “Your protection counts for a lot and the more common ingredients are no wrench to part with. But if even a third of the stories I’ve heard about you are true, you don’t exactly do common. You’ll be needing the big stuff.”

“Probably.” Dean said.

“Favours aren’t a currency I accept. Too messy and hard to place a value on. But a business like this could always use a contractor or two on the payroll. You can work for it.”

Dean narrowed his eyes. “What kind of work?”

“Your kind,” Isla said shortly. “I have people too. I’m no Megacoven,” she smiled down at Rowena, who let out a small huff of acknowledgement, “but I have a lot of contacts. This community is tight-knit and we usually prefer to deal with our… transgressors quietly, but some are more difficult to track down. There are plenty of rogue witches out there with a price on their heads… if you know where to cash in.”  
  


“Witch bounty hunters?” Dean considered that. “What’d they do?”

“Depends on the witch. Some are killers, some are thieves, some are both.”

“We’re not murderers-for-hire,” Dean said, bristling. Fifteen years ago, he knew he wouldn’t have thought twice. A witch was a monster and monsters needed putting down, and if he could get something out of it, so much the better. But now… he glanced at Rowena. She had been his enemy not long ago, and now he trusted her enough to walk into a den of other witches and not suspect a trap.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were hunters.” Isla’s gaze was steel. “Except hunters don’t usually get paid. You wanted the lucrative business arrangement, this is it. But of course, unless you need something from me that falls outside the budget of a scam credit card, you need never take me up on it.”

“Lady, if we need something from you, it would be in your best interests to give it to us.” Dean bit out. “We fight the world-endy kind of battles and we don’t have time for side-quests.”

“Then bring cash.” Isla said, holding out a business card between two fingers. Though she sneered as her eyes slid down to look at the bag of cheap clothes still clutched in Dean’s fist and his cheeks heated. He snatched the card anyway.

“Whatever.” He looked at Rowena, who was just packing the last of her purchases into her bag. “Are we done here?”

“Almost,” she said, then turned to Isla with a huge smile. “Now, on the way in I saw some of your gorgeous creations and I was hoping you could squeeze me in for a wee fitting? Also, do you do repairs?”

Isla positively beamed and hurried them back out front into the actual clothes part of the store, discussing fabrics and stitching and complimentary colours, gesturing for an assistant and sweeping Rowena away into a fitting room.

  
Dean sighed and took a seat. He wished again that Sam was here and _he_ was stocking up on ammo and silver they could melt down instead. And he cursed himself for always, _always_ picking scissors.


	6. The Three Star Experience

Cas found a case without too much difficulty. Ghost sightings had been popping up everywhere and there were even some that looked like they were a more corporeal issue. He honed in on those, needing a more thorough distraction than a salt-and-burn case, though he justified it with the fact that seeing as Sam had expressed interest tackling a ghost, more varied research was needed. With Rowena and the Winchesters’ accounts of two separate ghost hunts, it would be more useful to seek out knowledge on another creature entirely. Surely reports from other hunters would filter in over the next few days but seeing as ghosts were the most abundant issue at the moment, it would be sensible to make sure he chose something else.

Scouting by area narrowed his options even further, until he landed on a case in Cope, Colorado. Cas stared at the online map and felt that same anger from the cemetery crackle through him. He dared his Father to laugh at this poor joke. He was almost tempted to find another case entirely but it was only a few hours from where the Winchesters were currently staying and if they moved he would still likely be within the day’s drive that he’d promised. So he wrestled with his pride and allowed practicality to win out. Cope it was.

Xxx

He arrived a little before eleven am and after finding a motel to be his new base of operations (no cockroaches in this one thankfully. He didn’t mind the creatures as such, but they were very loud to his enhanced hearing and it felt rude to ask them to leave when they had been there first), he texted Sam to let him know where he was and what case he was looking into before heading back out to find whatever passed for law enforcement around here.

Driving through the town it looked to be a farming community; he passed houses with large barn structures and rusted ploughs in their yards, plus the huge fields filled with wheat stalks or grazing sheep were a hint. As was often the case in large areas of the US, the houses were spread out and one storey, plenty of land to each plot but despite that, the place seemed lifeless. There were few people out and about and hardly any of the gardens he passed seemed to be more than parking space. There was hardly any greenery, whatever grass there was was yellowed and patchy, only a few sparse hedges and even the trees, of which there were quite a few, only added to the desert feel of the place, along with the red dust roads which he knew would leave a layer on his car before it was time to leave this place.

The sheriff was a large man in his early fifties with a gut that flopped over the front of his pants. A large fold of skin was exposed where his shirt didn’t quite reach that Cas was trying very hard not to stare at. He clearly hadn’t seen too much trouble in his time here and seemed determined to ignore the possibility that that might change. He was polite enough, though Cas suspected that was due to his fake badge rather than his natural countenance. The man’s eyes were a watery blue, just slightly too small for his face and they looked smaller still because of the impressive whiskers sprouting from beneath his nose.

“I’m sure I’ve got no clue what the feds are doin’ here.” He said after offering Cas coffee, which he declined. “Ain’t nothing to be done.”

“Forgive me, Sheriff Wyatt, but there have been six deaths in this town in the past three weeks, you don’t find that worth investigating?”

Wyatt certainly didn’t like Cas’ implication there, his moustache quivered as he blew out a heavy breath through his nose and he shifted in his chair. He set his own coffee down on the paper he’d been reading when Cas arrived. “Four o’ them’s suicides, Agent Cyrus. One was an accident and one was a domestic dispute.”

“A domestic dispute?”

Wyatt nodded, seeming pleased that he knew something Cas didn’t. “Boyfriend killed his girl for steppin’ out on him. Nasty business, but we got him locked up and pending trial.”

“Still,” Cas said briskly. “Head office wanted someone down here. A single suicide is a tragedy, four is a pattern. Especially paired with these other cases in the same period of just a few months.”

Wyatt harrumphed, looking and sounding remarkably like a walrus. “This is a small town, Agent. Everybody knows everybody and everybody’s slept with everybody’s sister. You can’t police hurt feelin’s and affairs. After the first suicide we all mourned, you know? But you know how fads are.” He waved a hand dismissively. “It’ll burn itself out.”

Cas clenched his jaw in disgust. If the sheriff knew everybody in town then he’d known all of the victims, but instead of trying to prevent more death he was acting as though it wasn’t his concern. He wondered just how many suicides it would take for this man to even begin an investigation.

“Regardless. Seeing as I’m here I’d like your records of all six deaths. And any information you have on the victims would be much appreciated.”  
  


“Go speak to Lauren at the front desk, she’ll be able to give you all that.”  
  
In other words ‘I haven’t even looked at those files and don’t want to talk to you anymore anyway’.

He found Lauren easy enough. She was wearing a name badge and the same khaki uniform as the sheriff, though hers actually fit. She looked to be around thirty and despite the easy-going ways of her boss, her face bore the lines of stress and toughness.

“Yep, I can take you to records,” she said with the air of someone fully aware that this was outside of her job role but doing it anyway. Castiel wasn’t surprised. Usually, people in law enforcement would bend over backwards for a federal badge, and even the laziest would make the effort to at least talk through the details of whatever case he was asking about. Lauren led him back the way he’d just come, past Wyatt’s office, stopping another officer on the way and telling him to watch the reception until she got back. She fished out a bunch of keys at her belt and found the right one with ease, unlocking a door at the very back of the station, the brass label so spotted with rust that it was impossible to read.

Lauren opened the door for him and flipped on the light. A low buzzing started as soon as it came on. “You wanted all six, you said?”

“Please.”

Lauren nodded and made her way further into the room, towards the filing cabinets along the far wall. Cas hovered by the table and chair in the centre, not wanting to hurry her but not wanting to get comfortable while she was pulling files for him.

“Here you are,” she said after a few moments, laying the files down on the table one by one. “Mary Guthrie, she’s the one who was killed by her boyfriend, all his details are in the file too. Then we’ve got Leslie Pratt who was in the car accident, and Stefan Ramos, Francesca Hatch, Warren Phelps and… Madeline Foster. Those are the four suicides.”

“Cas noticed the hitch in her breathing and glanced down at her name tag once more. “A relative of yours?” He asked softly.

Lauren nodded, clearly doing her best to keep her face neutral, though there was a twitch at the side of her mouth that gave it away. “My sister.”

“I’m sorry.”

  
  
“Yeah. So am I.” Lauren turned her face away with a bitter smile. “I’m guessing you want me to talk about her?”

“A first-hand account is always useful,” Cas said carefully. “But if you’re not comfortable—”

“No, no. It’s fine.” Lauren waved his sympathy away. “No one else asks to tell you the truth. No need with a town this size, but still… might be nice, you know?”

She still had a haunted look though so he offered her a seat and she took it, he sat down too, flipping open the first file for Leslie Pratt. “How about we start with the accident victim and work our way through, if you don’t mind. Sheriff Wyatt wasn’t very… forthcoming and I’d like to get a full picture before I form any theories.”

Lauren scoffed. “Right. No, he wouldn’t be.” Then she looked stricken and straightened up, pulling the hem of her shirt down as though to iron out the creases. “I mean… he’s the sheriff, I’m sure he’s got more important things to do than—”

“Yes, I’m sure the crossword puzzle would take him weeks,” Cas said with a small smile. “I can assure you Officer Foster, you needn’t worry. I have no interest in reporting anything you say and I would prefer your candour over your professionalism.”

“Well, in that case you can call me Lauren,” she said, and she seemed relieved. “And Art isn’t a bad guy, he’s just a bad sheriff. I don’t think he ever wanted this job really, but his daddy was a cop and he never found a way out of it.” She shrugged. “Anyway, Leslie lived on the edge of town, up near the fire hall. He was on the local bowling team but otherwise kept to himself.”

Cas scanned the basic information page of the file. 68 years old, his wife died four years ago, cause of death, head trauma sustained in a car wreck, though there were signs that he’d had a heart attack just prior, probably what distracted him enough to hit a tree. There were pictures on the subsequent pages, and Cas dutifully searched them all, though he saw nothing to raise his suspicions. If any of the six were genuinely what they appeared, he’d put his money on this one. He wouldn’t discount it though. He could interrogate the bowling team, of course, but doubted it would yield anything useful. He closed the folder and put it aside for now, sliding another towards him. This file was much thicker, having been a non-disputable murder.  
  


“Sheriff Wyatt told me that Mary was having an affair?”  
  
Lauren pursed her lips. “Rumour has it that she’d had a drunken make-out session with the school star quarterback at a party. Like that matters. Girl coulda been screwing all the boys in her class, wouldn’t excuse what Ryan did to her. We caught him red-handed, he was still holdin’ the tie round her neck when we broke the door down.” She shook her head. “It’s a damn waste. And people like Ryan thinking that he could reign her in. Mary was the most popular girl in school. Pretty, funny, wicked smart, always making stuff. She’d applied to colleges all over, top-end ones. Wanted to be an engineer. She got in too, and she was all set and packed but a few months back she decided to give it all up for Ryan. Moved in with him, rejected all her colleges even though she’d talked about nothing but leaving for years and all her friends said she was never serious about him. I don’t know what kind of mind tricks he pulled on her to get her to stay but I tell you, slapping cuffs on him felt like a poor justice.”

There was something vicious in her voice as she said it, something that said she’d like to get this Ryan alone in a room with no security cameras. Cas could understand that as he looked through her file. Mary had only barely turned seventeen, her face bright and youthful, her life so full of potential. Not that choosing to stay in a small town was a bad thing, but if that hadn’t been what she wanted, if she had been pushed into another life because of someone else’s selfishness…

“Um… Agent Cyrus, are you alright?”

Cas hadn’t realised that he’d crumpled a corner of the file in his fist as grief tore through him. He forced himself to release the file and sit back.

“Yes. My apologies, I just… I lost my son recently. They were a similar age.” They weren’t, of course, Jack technically hadn’t even made it to three, but Mary Guthrie had a very familiar innocent smile.

“Oh.” Lauren didn’t say anything else, didn’t apologise. Her own grief apparently taught her that sorry meant very little. Cas wished he’d shown her the same courtesy earlier.

Lauren talked him through the rest of the cases then, how Stefan Ramos had cut his own wrists when his wife had told him she was leaving him, how Francesca Hatch had hanged herself in her office after a very heated argument with her mother over the phone, how Warren Phelps overdosed on pills when the girl he had a crush on rejected his prom proposal. Which left only one.  
  
“Maddie was gay.” Lauren began without preamble, pushing the folder towards him across the table. She looked up at him then, as though waiting for a reaction, and seemed heartened when she didn’t find one. Cas merely folded his hands on top of Madeline’s file and waited for her to continue. “Our parents are good folks, though not everyone in this town is as supportive.” Her dark tone told Castiel exactly what she thought about that. “She always had plenty of friends, moved away to college. She loved people, big cities, you know? Always needed something to do, couldn’t bear being stuck inside. One of the traits you get growin’ up in a farming town.” Lauren’s smile turned wistful. 

“But then she got made redundant last year, couldn’t afford her rent, had to move back home while she looked for something else. That was real tough on her. Not like she didn’t get on with the folks or nothing, but she’d been so used to the freedom. She complained to me about it all the time, how there was nothing to do here, no one outside of family that she felt comfortable with. The town ain’t bad as a whole; Reggie and Thomas have been married for years and nobody bothers them, but I guess she was just lonely. Most of our class moved away when she did and the ones who stayed aren’t the type that she got on with. But she was sending out so many resumes and she’d be gone for days at a time just to make an interview. She was so sure she was gonna get something soon. I thought she was doing okay. Not happy, but you know… coping.” her voice turned bitter with the bad joke. “Guess not, though, huh?”

“It’s impossible to know,” Cas said. “People can be very good at hiding how much they’re hurting.”

Lauren shrugged, though she didn’t look comforted. “I guess. She was just always so… hopeful. Sure, she got annoyed at stuff, upset too, but she wasn’t gonna stay here forever, she had a plan...” she shook her head. “It’s just hard to match the person I knew with the person I found. Everything’s been screwy in this town lately. So many more reports of domestic disputes from couples you never would’ve thought. Along with the six funerals we’ve had three weddings, about eight files for divorce, a major uptick in STDs and so many rumours about teenage pregnancy and affairs happening I can’t even list ’em, it’s crazy.”

“That does sound… unusual,” Cas said carefully, trying to hide his eagerness. This could be a demon’s work, or a siren perhaps. Maybe even a shapeshifter just trying to cause chaos. “I don’t suppose you’ve had any reports of someone new in town, since all this started? Someone charismatic? Possibly wearing black contacts?”

Lauren stared at him a moment, “Um… no black contacts, but we got a new guy roll in a while back. Keith something. He rents out the house next to Leslie’s old place. I wouldn’t call him charismatic though, he’s no cult leader if that’s what you’re thinking. Our town wouldn’t have any of that.”

“You’d be surprised how persuasive some people can be.” Cas said, because starting rumours of a cult wouldn’t exactly hurt his cover, and would explain away a lot of strange things to those who didn’t know better. He stood and gathered up the files. He planned to read them more thoroughly back in his motel room. Then he could try finding this Keith. He got Lauren’s number in case he needed anything else (he was well aware that there would be no point calling the sheriff) and left the station, feeling hopeful. It wasn’t a lot to go on, but it was a definite lead. He threw the files in his trunk, on top of the blanket only barely concealing the stash of weapons from the bunker’s armoury. It was a far cry from the Impala’s secret compartment but it would do. He was glad for the Winchesters’ paranoia. Each car in the bunker was packed with a few hunting essentials and seeing as they were trying to gather research, Cas figured that he should go about this hunt the human way. Angel blades killed pretty much everything so they’d get nothing useful out of that. He would have to figure out what the danger was, then test the usual known weaknesses to see if they were still effective. It was a comforting thought, methodical, purposeful, neat. He’d found himself tiring of chaos of late. This hunt might be exactly the kind of distraction that he needed.

Xxx

Sam winced at the crick in his back as he hunched over his phone. He shot Dean a quick text telling him to hurry his ass up picking out clothes. He didn’t exactly feel comfortable waiting around on a public bench with a duffle full of guns and ammo and another bag of silver jewellery, especially when he was still sporting bruises on his face. Rowena had dabbed some powder on to cover up the worst of it (much to Dean’s chagrin) but he still got the odd look. He was as close to Rowena’s tiny car as he could get without raising any suspicions, but she had taken the keys so he couldn’t store the new purchases.

His phone buzzed angrily at him, a quick series of messages from Dean, blaming Rowena and Gucci witches, followed by a picture of Rowena modelling a dress that even through the phone camera, Sam could tell probably cost more than all the clothes he and Dean had ever bought combined. It was a brilliant peacock blue, which contrasted with the red of her hair, and it hugged her petite shape perfectly. The dress reached her ankles, though it was slightly longer at the back to form the effect of a train without losing practicality. Sam didn’t know much about clothes, but he could tell that it suited her. He smiled and judged by Dean’s irritation that they would be a little while longer.  
  
He started flipping through news sites on his phone, searching his alerts for any ghost activity nearby. There was quite a lot actually, more than he’d expected. Ghosts were usually the easiest hunts to find seeing as there was a decent percentage of the population that believed in them and so sightings were common, and even though more than half ghost sightings were bogus there was usually a detail or two that hunters kept their eyes out for. Unfortunately, most of these looked genuine. Sam frowned at his screen, scrolling through the dozens of new cases that had popped up since yesterday. What the hell was happening with ghosts? There didn’t seem to be an increase in any other supernatural being. A lot of them looked to have died recently too, within the past year, though hardly any of them had been classed as suspicious deaths: old age, terminal diseases, car accidents, not exactly the kind of people that usually stuck around to cause trouble. They couldn’t _all_ have some kind of unfinished business important enough to tether them here.

He shifted his weight on the bench and grimaced as he jostled what he was pretty sure were bruised ribs, a great throbbing reminder that he and Dean were hardly at their peak. Still, they’d be better tomorrow, and tonight Sam planned to take full advantage of the hotel’s gym and pool, even if he couldn’t do quite as rigorous a routine as usual. He’d grown reliant on Cas being around. Despite knowing logically that he still had a few injuries, he was surprised every time he felt them. Angel magic definitely had its uses, but from how drained Cas had been in the cemetery Sam wasn’t sure how much longer they could count on those anyway. It would be good to heal the human way again, get back into the swing of fighting around his limitations. The adrenaline of a fight could do amazing things, but the price could be steep later on. He pressed at what was surely a deep bruise on his lower back, where the gun in his waistband had pressed into him while he’d been wrestling with his other self. He let out a breath at the crest then ebb of pain and tried not to think too hard about what had caused it, and all the worse things they had yet to face.

He went back to searching for a case and found one about five hours out from Cas in Ainsworth, Nebraska. It wasn’t the closest ghost hunt but the circumstances were similar to Rowena’s case: died eight months ago, just started showing up as a ghost in the house of her grandson, where she’d been living before she died of heart failure. It wasn’t someone you’d expect to come back. He did a quick search for a background check. No weird jobs, gave up working once her kids were born. No reports of domestic violence or tragedy, nothing to suggest unfinished business. Just a normal, boring life. With the decision made he spent the next three quarters of an hour playing Candy Crush until _finally_ Dean and Rowena came into view, Dean laden with far more bags than was necessary for a few days’ worth of thrift clothes, but judging from the way they looked to be bickering heatedly, most of those bags were Rowena’s.  
  


Sam smirked and stood, picking up his own purchases. “You ready?”

“Oh yeah. This one just _needed_ to try on half the store, _and_ take forever ordering something custom.”

“I’m hardly going to pass up a chance to get something so unique am I?” She gave Dean a withering look that seemed to bounce off his pure lack of understanding of her priorities.

“We’re facing down the apocalypse, Rowena,” Sam said diplomatically, offering to take the single bag she was carrying while Dean spluttered his protests. “Maybe your money would be better spent on more… um… immediate concerns.”

“I’m rich, Samuel. I can spend my money however I fancy and I’ve always got more. Besides, this gives us all the more incentive to fix things. I want that dress.”

Dean scoffed at apparently being included in the ‘us’. Sam privately agreed, but let the matter drop as they headed to the car and did their best to stuff everything (including themselves) into the tiny vehicle. Rowena again insisted on driving, meaning that even though she was the smallest, she got the most space. Her smile said that she was fully aware of that too, and even Sam couldn’t resist a glower in her direction, even though it _was_ her car.

It was only a ten minute drive to the hotel and during that time the others updated him on this Isla and her store. He had to admit, it was pretty genius. He wondered how many witch hideouts they’d passed without looking twice. Probably more than any hunter should be comfortable with, judging by Dean’s expression, but now that he thought about it, it was only logical. What better way to hide than the kind of store no hunter would ever think to go in? Plus, although not every witch was evil, all practising witches had a similar hunger to prove themselves. They could do that with a successful business just as well as with a fearsome reputation.

Magic was its own kind of drug, he supposed. It was heady and made promises of safety and power and a removal of all things that normal people feared. It granted long life and youth and protection from evil; it contained solutions in a recipe, certainty in a ritual. Sam found that appealing, but could also see how easy it would be to become addicted. He watched as Rowena checked the rear-view and hummed to herself as she indicated to turn. He was pretty sure she was more magic than human by now. Sam remembered again his younger self, so driven to do the right thing. He remembered how powerful he had felt when he was drinking demon blood, how invincible, even when the inevitable migraine set in. And magic could do so much more than smite a few demons, though the price wasn’t always so obvious.  
  
He worried for her. In a low-level kind of way. He worried that the price for the magic she wielded would come due, and he worried that Billie was right and _he_ would end up being the one to kill her. He didn’t like to think of that prophecy, but it came back to him now and again. He didn’t want to kill Rowena. He liked her, despite all of their past feuds. He actually admired the evil in her, the way it didn’t lessen when she did good, just got outshined. She owned her dark side in a way that he and Dean never could. She had given up on guilt and Sam wondered sometimes if that was part of the magic too, or if that was just who Rowena McLeod was.

Either way, she was powerful and he was glad that she was on their side. He was also glad to have someone around who wasn’t his brother. He didn’t think he could deal with the cloying friction between them at the moment, so it was good to have someone else as a buffer, smoothing the edges so they could work together without getting prickly over every decision. Almost everything Dean said Sam wanted to snap at, and he was pretty sure an explosion was coming. He could only paper over his anger for so long in the name of professionalism; Rowena’s presence kept them both from being able to mope, driving them to action instead.

He wished he could just let it go, he thought as they pulled into the parking lot of the hotel, Rowena actually letting him out her side this time so he and Dean didn’t have to clamber over each other. He didn’t _want_ to be mad at Dean, especially because he knew that Dean was probably beating himself up already, but he just couldn’t reconcile the fact that his brother had gone out of his way to try and kill their kid; no hesitation, no thought to what would happen _after_. Of course, Dean had figured that he wouldn’t have to deal with the after, what with wielding the God gun and all. He slammed the car door, ignoring Rowena’s yelp of indignation, and went to help Dean with the bags. His brother’s mood looked sour too, though he wondered how much of that was the day’s events and how much was everything else.

He hated feeling this way. He knew it wasn’t helpful. They needed to work together if they were going to bring Chuck down, but he also knew that it was going to take him longer than a few days to put this behind him, to properly mourn Jack and to forgive Dean. But so much else had happened, he didn’t exactly have the time to think everything through. Hell, he was still trying to wrap his head around Dean’s Hell-form, and his own younger selves. Rowena’s presence was only a band-aid on a gaping wound. He wished Cas were here too, wished he hadn’t run off to Colorado in his own attempt to get away from Dean. Sure, there were other reasons too, but Sam wasn’t going to kid himself into pretending that that wasn’t the main one. He was done making excuses for his brother. In going on a murder-suicide mission against Jack he’d crossed a line that Sam wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to fully move past. Being angry about what happened with Mary was one thing, but being willing to both die _and_ kill your son in revenge was a whole other level of screwed up. The fact that he hadn’t actually gone through with it was the only saving grace in this whole situation. Even if it had only ended up sparing Dean.

When they got back up to the room, Rowena almost immediately went out again, saying she had a dress to drop off for repairs, but that they’d better not eat without her. Sam shook his head in bewilderment but knew better than to say anything. Dean scowled and said that he’d had enough of witches for one day. Rowena just stuck out her tongue at him and left. 

Dean started unpacking the jewellery and stuff they’d need to melt it. Silver bullets were always useful to have and there hadn’t been any in the go-bag. It was a testament to Dean’s priorities that he’d packed witch-killing and devil’s trap bullets, but not silver. When Sam brought this up, Dean shrugged, looking embarrassed.

“I meant to replace ’em,” he said. “We were running low and just about to go out on a werewolf case. I figured we could use the extra.”

Sam nodded. It was a reasonable explanation, just bad luck that he’d picked the go-bag Dean had raided.

They worked together in silence. The bathroom had a window and Sam had managed to get a good deal on some respirators and safety goggles, so it was a far cry from how they’d done it when they were kids, but the acrid smell still brought back memories best left buried. He’d started off delighted at being included in real hunting but had quickly grown to resent it. At eight years old he shouldn’t have been given a blowtorch and hot metal when he had homework to finish. After the first few times of supervising, John never joined them so it wasn’t even a family activity. While Dean had been ecstatic to be granted this modicum of trust from John, Sam grew increasingly petulant, usually leaving Dean to finish by himself.

Sam glanced over at his brother. If Dean was having any of the same flashbacks, he wasn’t showing it. He looked almost peaceful as he worked, completely focussed on the monotonous task. While Sam was melting the metal, Dean was carefully pouring the previous batch into the (also heated) mould, which Sam had purchased and Dean had reshaped a little for their purposes. His hands were steady and he looked pleased when none of the liquid splashed out. It was tricky to manoeuvre around several open flames in a hotel bathroom, but this bathroom was larger than most of the others they’d done this in, so they managed pretty well, and by the time they were done they had two dozen bullets and not even a scorch mark on the floor to indicate what they’d been doing.  
  
They left the bathroom and Sam pulled off his respirator, gratefully taking in the cooler air of the hallway. He was too warm and sweating and he missed the large work room in the bunker that they usually did this in. His hair was plastered to his head and his throat was sand-dry and from the look of it, Dean was the same.

“Are you done?” Rowena asked when they entered the main area to find her reclining on the couch and flipping through a magazine that she’d picked up… somewhere, the picture of elegance compared to their sweaty, dishevelled states. Sam headed for the sink and filled two glasses with water, gulping his down and giving the other to Dean, who took it gratefully. “You should both shower before dinner. I’ve already booked us the table, and afterwards we’re hitting the spa!”

“We are?” Sam and Dean asked at the same time.

“Well… me and Dean are. But the gym’s right next door so we can go down together.”

Sam couldn’t help the smile that pulled at his cheeks. She knew him so well, this tiny, red-haired tornado in human form. He hadn’t mentioned his plans to her, and yet she knew, just as she knew that Dean also wanted to relax in the spa, but would never have mentioned it. She was far more observant than they gave her credit for, and far kinder than she would ever admit to. He wasn’t too proud to admit that he might be developing a small crush, so when they’d cleaned up (using Rowena’s shower because the other bathroom was still dangerously smokey), Sam offered her his arm to escort her downstairs. She looked delighted at this small gesture and glided alongside him as graceful and proud as a queen. Dean trailed along slightly behind, and Sam could almost feel his questioning gaze. His brother might be oblivious to his _own_ feelings, but he knew Sam better than anyone and could probably figure out what this little display of chivalry meant. Sam was glad Dean couldn’t see his face, because he may have been blushing. Still, Dean had no right to get involved, and it wasn’t as though this was a good time to even think about starting something, so it wasn’t as though he’d _say_ anything, but there was no harm in indulging his crush a little.

Dinner was delicious. They chatted amiably over dishes of salmon and steak. Dean gave Sam his side-salad, and Sam pointed out that they had blueberry pie on the dessert menu. It was easier to ignore the tension between them while enjoying a good meal. They kept the conversation topics light, swapping funny stories and terrible jokes and Sam felt himself begin to relax for the first time in days. He still felt the absences though, as though there were two empty chairs at the table where Jack and Cas should be. He was pretty sure Dean felt it too, but neither of them mentioned it. He wondered what it would have been like to bring Jack to a place like this. The kid had never experienced luxury. What would he think of the chocolate bomb dessert or the small portions? What would he think of the décor? Would he stare up in wonder at the crystal chandeliers and huge bay windows? He could almost picture the serious expression on his face as Rowena taught him which fork to use with what. The thought was painful, but not overwhelmingly so. Sam wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Was he so accustomed to grief that it only took him a few days to move past the death of his son? No, he decided, not by a long shot, but the initial sting had lessened slightly and he couldn’t help but be a little grateful.

After dinner they headed back up to the room so Sam could grab a few things. He tossed a change of clothes and a clean towel into one of the shopping bags they’d accumulated and Rowena led them back down to the basement, where the spa, pool and gym were housed. They ignored Dean’s half-hearted grumblings about how he’d had enough girly crap for one day and how he would’ve gone to the gym too but Rowena had already booked massages without asking. Sam caught her eye and they shared a small smile, then Sam split off to the changing rooms, where he got a wristband for a locker and lost himself in the familiar clarity of a good workout.

He felt a lot better as he wandered back up to the room a couple of hours later, calmer and more focussed. He’d sorted through a lot of things as he worked his poor muscles and had come to the conclusion that Rowena was right, he had been harder on Dean than he needed to be. He was still pissed, of course, he didn’t think that anger was going away any time soon, but it no longer roiled in his gut like nausea and he was pretty confident that he could keep it in check until they had time to deal with it. It wasn’t as though Dean was oblivious to the damage he’d done, and he _was_ sorry. That counted for something.

The suite was quiet when he let himself in. Dean and Rowena mustn’t be back yet. Good. Sam hurried to the bedroom he was sharing with Dean and pulled his gross gym shirt from the bag. He wrinkled his nose and carefully unwrapped it from around the God gun before stowing the weapon back under his mattress. He’d had it in his waistband when they ran out of the bunker and hadn’t seen fit to correct Dean when he’d assumed it was still locked inside. He’d kept it on his person as much as possible since, not wanting to give Dean the chance to find it. He didn’t feel guilty about the deception. In fact, remembering his brother’s determination to use the gun kept him firmly assured that he was doing the right thing. The last thing he needed was to wake up one morning and find that Dean had taken the gun and gone off to kill Chuck on his own. If Dean didn’t know that they had it, he couldn’t do anything stupid with it.

He stood, shoving the shirt and sweatpants back into the duffle, along with the rest of their dirty clothes. They’d have to find a laundrette in Ainsworth. They might have some new clothes to tide them over but that bag was going to start smelling pretty rank before long.

Heading back into the main area, he decided to try one of the herbal teas rather than coffee and settled down with a cup on the sofa. He closed his eyes, just enjoying the quiet peace of the moment, the comfortable couch, the heat of the cup on his knuckles where they brushed it as he held it by the handle, the smell of peppermint. It was moments like this that gave him the strength to battle the rest of it, he realised. A fantasy of normality that he could cling to for a few precious minutes, reminding him this was what he was preserving by continuing the fight. It was grounding, it was humbling, and it was enough.

Voices in the hallway snapped Sam out of his half-doze. He jumped when he heard the beep as the room key was activated and took a sip of his tea, which was now barely lukewarm. He was glad he’d chosen mint, any other tea was disgusting cold.

Dean entered first and held the door open for Rowena. They both had dopey, relaxed smiles on their faces.

“Good massage?” He asked them. Dean just shrugged and tucked his chin in a little, as though that would hide how pleased he was.

“Lovely, thank you.” Rowena said. “Just the thing to see us off back into the world of hunting. Might as well take advantage while we can.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed, then he pulled out his phone. “Speaking of, I found us the case. So get this...”

As he launched into an outline of the hunt, Dean flopped down next to him on the sofa and Rowena took the armchair. The room was growing dark around them. It was the kind of slowly inching darkness that you could still see by, until someone turned on the light and you realised you’d been squinting uncomfortably.

It was around half eight when Dean reached over to switch on a lamp.

  
“So, tomorrow we head for Nebraska,” he said. His voice was neutral but Sam could still hear the disappointment in it. He too had enjoyed this little reprieve from the constant barrage of crap that was their lives. A full day’s break with no worries greater than figuring out where to buy guns and silver without raising suspicion (pawn shops were usually the best no questions asked places but he’d had to go into several other stores in between so he wouldn’t set off any alarm bells). It had been nice while it lasted.


	7. Coping

According to Lauren, the most likely place to find Keith on any given evening was Rosco’s, the local bar. The cluster of people smoking outside looked unhappy enough that Cas figured this was a rule that had only been put in place recently, that idea was cemented when he walked inside. 

His immediate thought was that Dean would feel right at home here. The ceiling was stained yellow from years of tobacco build up and there was a jukebox in one corner that looked like it had been on the receiving end of an annoyed kick or three in its time. The bartender looked harried with three customers waiting so Cas turned to lean on the bar instead, trying not to think about how sticky the surface was under his palms. He surveyed the overcrowded room. The town had a population of less than 250 people but it looked like half of them had turned up tonight. The meagre dance floor was a solid mass of writhing bodies, none of them particularly following the rhythm of whatever lively fiddle-heavy song was playing. There was something grotesque about it. It made him shift uncomfortably and look away; though he liked to think he’d become less ‘prudish’ about sex over the years, the concentration of pheromones was bordering on obscene. No wonder the people here were engaging in more affairs if  _ this _ was the only kind of night life in town.

Not everyone was dancing though. There were couples and groups of people crammed into booths, men close to retirement leered at girls who were clearly  _ just _ legal. He figured it must be difficult getting anyone to believe a fake ID in a town this small, when the bartender had probably been a babysitter at one point; then again, everyone knowing each other, they might figure there was no harm in turning a blind eye, especially when half the bar probably had their parents’ phone numbers.

Scanning over the booths, Cas was brought up short at the sight of a familiar face.

“ Jacob?”

The man didn’t react, though Cas could hardly be surprised given the noise in here. He strode over to the booth that mercifully only had one occupant. Jacob was staring intently at the dance floor, a glazed look on his face, and didn’t even seem to register Cas’ approach until he was right in front of him. He looked up, blinked, blinked again.

“ Castiel?”

Cas smiled and slid into the booth opposite the man, who drew his beer closer to him as though worried Cas would try to steal it.

“ It’s good to see you Jacob. Are you here on this case too?”

Jacob was one of the Apocalypse World survivors. He had been one of the first to leave the bunker and Sam and Dean hadn’t heard from him since. Not surprising. Not all of the survivors wanted to become hunters after all; a lot of them, like Charlie, had just been content to find safety in this new world and start building their lives. But if Jacob was here then it couldn’t be a coincidence. Jacob hesitated a second, then nodded.

“ All those crazy deaths, yeah. I figured I should stop by. I know you guys told me to check in but...” he shrugged and shot Cas a lazy grin. “No offence but I didn’t really want in on your little club, I just wanted to hit the road.”

“ I take it you’re Keith then.”

“ That’s what I’ve been callin’ myself.” Jacob’s features were a little hard to focus on through the haze of the bar but his teeth flashed white and his brown eyes glittered. “I thought my ears were burnin’ a while back.”

“ I don’t suppose you’ve figured this mess out yet, have you?” Cas asked. “How long have you been here?”

“ A couple weeks. And I’ve got sweet FA to show for it.”

“ No leads?”

“ Too many,” Jacob corrected. “My guess is a siren, maybe two working together, but I mean...” he gestured to the dance floor, “look at this place. The whole town’s been screwing around like one of those soap dramas. Could be a family of shifters just messing with people but no one’s tested positive for a silver allergy so far.”

“ Speaking of...” Cas said apologetically, pulling out a small, silver spoon from his coat. “Would you mind?”

Jacob laughed. “What, no trust between hunters?”

Cas shrugged and Jacob shook his head, seeming more amused than offended.   
  
“ Slide it over then.”

Cas did and Jacob snatched it up easily before sliding it back. No smoking palms or grimacing. He wasn’t a shifter at least.

“ Careful, I could still be a siren,” he joked.

Cas smiled wryly. “If you are then you’re way off the mark for me.”

“ Who says you’re my mark? I didn’t even know you were in town.”

Cas knew he was being messed with, knew that this was what Dean would call ‘banter’, but the idea was a sound one so from another pocket he retrieved a small compact mirror and angled it so he could see Jacob on its surface.

Jacob seemed to find this hilarious. “Wow… there’s  _ really _ no trust, huh?” he said as Cas put away both the spoon and the mirror.

“ A lot has happened since you left,” Cas said by way of an answer. “So you’ve got nothing on any of the deaths?”

“ I never got a fed badge,” Jacob said. “I’m mostly just here out of curiosity. I was pretty sure it wasn’t even a hunt when I arrived so I was just poking around, asking the locals a few questions. I’m pretending to be a reporter. The locals like that kind of thing, the chance to tell their story, you know? But of course, the cops won’t let me anywhere near their files so I guess I screwed myself on that one.”

“ I’ve got the files.” Cas said. “There’s very little that points to any kind of typical MO.”

“ You get anything from the autopsy reports?” Jacob asked. “A town this small, profiles were easy to find but it’s the official stuff I couldn’t get close to.”

“ Only the murder victim had an autopsy done.” Cas said. That fact had frustrated him. The report on Mary was going to be used as evidence against her boyfriend but Leslie’s death had been termed an accident after an examination of the car, and the sheriff had clearly thought the suicides weren’t worth any further investigation. Two of the bodies had already been cremated and to ask for an exhumation now he would need a solid reason as to why he thought those deaths were more than just the extreme acts of very unhappy people.   
  
Jacob took a gulp of his beer and seemed to savour it, thinking as he placed the bottle back on the table. Then he glanced around as though to make sure no one was listening in and leaned forward. Cas mirrored him.

“ You know,” he said, “I gotta hunch that it’s the big guy Wyatt behind all of this.”

Cas snorted. “The sheriff? Really?” He tilted his head and considered the notion for a moment, then promptly dismissed it. “He’s not smart enough.”

“ Or is that just what he wants everyone to think?” Jacob said. “I mean, I’ve got no proof or nothin’ but think about it. He’s the one in charge of what gets investigated, right? And he’s pretty determined to sweep this all under the rug. Could be he’s just lazy or it could be something else. I’ve been trying to get an ‘interview’ with him since the third body dropped but his secretary keeps fobbing me off.”

“ The downside to posing as a reporter,” Cas mused. “It might get the average citizen to open up a little but with governmental agencies it’s a coin toss whether you’ll be thrown out or pandered to. Neither of which gets you the answers you need.”

“ Yeah, yeah.” Jacob waved him away. “Don’t preach at me, cousin. I took a risk and it didn’t pay off. It happens. But now I’m kinda stuck, see? I can’t get a new badge and start waving it around. I can only do so much from the sidelines and Wyatt’s either suspicious or incompetent, but either way it’s worth looking into, don’t you think?”

Cas shook his head. “I don’t have time to spend investigating substandard policing practices,” he said. “If I can confirm he’s human then that’s enough. I need to make this quick.”

Jacob stared at him, eyes narrowing. “Something big’s going down isn’t it?” he asked. “With your buddies?”

“ Yes.”

“ Cousin, why are you here? Shouldn’t you be helping them?”

“ I am,” Cas said shortly. “So are you going to help me find this thing?”

Jacob tilted his head at him, then he nodded. “Sure. I’ve got my own reputation to build now anyway, might as well get started by helping the Winchesters’ angel.”

Something about that comment rankled. “I’m my own angel.”   
  
Xxx

They spent the next few hours formulating a plan. It was good to have someone to trade ideas with, more familiar than staring at newspaper articles on his own, trying to claw out a meaning, but it was still strange that it wasn't Sam and Dean. They decided to interview Francesca Hatch’s mother, Stefan Ramos’ wife and Warren Phelps’ crush to see if they remembered anything. Cas also wanted to know more about this increased rate of sexual deviancy. Jacob laughed and made a joke and Cas couldn’t help but think that Dean’s joke would have been funnier.

He shook himself of that thought. This was a good thing, he repeated to himself. He’d grown too used to deferring to the Winchesters, it would be good for him to take control again, to lead. Jacob had come from a world of war, and seemed far too eager to suggest plans that would risk exposing the creature to civilians, clearly unused to there  _ being _ civilians who weren’t aware of the supernatural. Cas urged subtlety and couldn’t help but hear Sam’s voice in his head, guiding his own strategy. He wasn’t sure if he resented that or not. He had been a general in the angelic Host, he shouldn’t need help from a human who was for all intents and purposes an embryo compared to him in age. And yet, in the past fifteen years of his life he had learned more than he had since his creation. Mostly because almost all the knowledge he had gained before his mission to rescue the Righteous Man was programmed directly into him rather than  _ learned _ . He had no sense memory to associate with learning how the Earth came to be, he just knew, just as he knew all language as it was created, just as he knew war and how to fight although he had never been trained. It was strange the difference it made, having a tangible reference to draw from.

It was difficult to talk over the noise of the bar but they could be fairly certain they wouldn’t be overheard and Jacob expressed no desire to leave, so they used the mirror to check if any of the other patrons were sirens as they joined and left the dance floor (they weren’t), and they managed to formulate a way to get the bartender to pick up the silver spoon (nothing happened) and they came up with several possible theories to test out before the noise level began to drop and the music got cut off. They made arrangements to meet the next morning to conduct the interviews and parted ways, Cas noticing just how many people were leaving in pairs, clinging together with drunken laughter and sloppy kisses. He found it doubtful that half that number were some kind of supernatural being. It just wouldn’t make sense. That sent his thoughts down a different track. Could it be a wraith instead? Something spreading its venom throughout the town to induce a pattern of behaviours? There was that one in a psychiatric hospital that Sam and Dean told him about, the one who preferred to feast on the brains of the mentally unwell. Could this be a wraith that preferred the brains of those filled with lust instead?

He headed back for the motel, his thoughts churning. There hadn’t been any kind of mark that would indicate a wraith’s spike, but their venom was transferred via a simple touch. Could this wraith be dosing the whole town and only feeding when an opportunity presented itself? Leslie Pratt had sustained a fair amount of head trauma in his accident, Mary Guthrie and Francesca Hatch had both had enough bruising and irritation on their necks that might cover a small puncture wound, Warren Phelps had been in the hospital for two days before passing away, ample opportunity for a wraith to sneak in and feed.

Which left Stefan Ramos and Madeleine Foster as what? Collateral damage? Possibly. Stefan had cut his own wrists, bleeding to death in his bathtub, dead before a neighbour called to check on him. It was possible the wraith had found him while he was bleeding out, but there’d been no mention of a puncture wound in the coroner’s report. Madeline had used a gun from her parents’ cabinet to end her life so there wouldn’t have been much left to feed on in that case. That meant that she at least was an outlier. But there were bound to be some unwanted consequences to filling people with sexual desire, a desire that could all too easily turn sour.

He thought over his theory for most of the night, though he did sleep for a few hours and woke up groggy and confused, half-convinced he was back in the bunker before all the memories of why he wasn’t came crashing back into him. It took him a few extra minutes to muster the energy to stand after that.

He went to meet Jacob with a stone in his gut but confident that he was onto something with his wraith theory. He explained it as Jacob drove them to the house of Lucille Hatch, Francesca’s mother, and Jacob nodded along and agreed that some kind of easily spread venom made more sense than a monster attacking an individual at a time. Cas could only see his profile while driving, and even that poorly as Jacob was apparently a chain smoker when outside of places that banned it and the car was thick with fumes. Cas coughed pointedly but either Jacob didn’t notice or chose to ignore him. He wrinkled his nose and rolled the window down, hoping that with the car moving, even the still air of Colorado could be whipped up into some semblance of a breeze. It was only partially successful.

He took a moment to text Sam a quick update, including his new companion, and received an almost instant reply that they too were travelling, and a set of coordinates in Nebraska. He seemed pleased that Cas was working with someone, even more so that it was someone they already knew. He reiterated his warning to be careful and Cas promised to call him tomorrow, hopefully with a concrete result.

“ You know, I met Fran Hatch a couple days before she bit it,” Jacob said conversationally. “Bumped into her in the grocery store. Her cart hardly had anything in it, just a few ready meals. She wasn’t the friendliest of people. Not rude, but like she had somewhere else to be, impatient. In this kind of town you don’t usually see that. People’ll stop you on the street just to talk about the weather.”

Cas didn’t really know what to say to that. The car ride was mercifully short; considering the size of the town Cas was hardly surprised, though the houses were somewhat spread out and had long driveways with no markers. Jacob had been here long enough that he’d got to know his way around and Cas was grateful, seeing as his GPS was less than helpful out here.

Mrs Hatch was a woman fast approaching 70 and bowed with a grief that Cas knew all too well. She greeted them and offered them tea, leading them through into a living room where framed photographs adorned every wall and free space on the mantelpiece and bookshelf. There was a small coffee table, a maroon felt sofa and two armchairs. Cas followed Mrs Hatch into the kitchen to help her with the tea, plating up some cookies and being sure to pass her silver teaspoon of his own when she added sugar. He carried the tea tray for her and she sat next to her husband, Eric. In their twin floral-patterned armchairs they looked perfectly comfortable, and only Mrs Hatch’s shaky hands and Mr Hatch’s reddened eyes betrayed what they felt at being asked for details on their daughter’s suicide.

“ Don’t know what you gotta be bringing it up for,” Mr Hatch grunted, taking his wife’s hand when Cas broached the topic of their phone conversation. “Ain’t nothin’ to investigate.”

“ I understand that this is very difficult,” Cas said patiently, leaning forward, and though Mr Hatch let out a scoffing sound at that, he said nothing further. “I just need to know what was said. My associate here is writing a piece about mental health and possible signs or patterns of behaviour and seeing as that coincides with my investigation, we thought it would be easier all around to conduct this interview together. Of course, your names will not appear in the article and I will allow nothing printed that could harm my investigation. You were having an argument, correct?”

Mrs Hatch nodded, her lip trembling. “Last words I ever spoke to her were cruel ones. I pray to God that she knows how sorry I am.”

“ I’m sure she does,” Cas said, swallowing against a flash of his own pain at the idea that there were people who still believed in a God that was kind and actually gave a crap. Of course, Francesca didn’t know,  _ couldn’t _ know how distraught her parents were, or the regret her mother felt at whatever harsh words she’d spoken, but she would instead be surrounded by memories of love and joy. He wanted to share that fact with them, but knew he couldn’t risk his cover. “What was the argument about?”

“ Her work.” Mrs Hatch sighed and slumped back into her chair as though the very memory exhausted her. “It was always about her work. Worked her to the bone, that place and did they appreciate her? No they did not. This town is a two-hour commute from that office and they’d call her in for six am meetings and have her staying till past midnight. ’Course, she loved the place, and they paid her well enough to earn a good amount of savings, but what good does that do her now?” Her grip shifted on her husband’s hand and she looked over at him. He gave her the barest flash of a smile, a sad thing, but she must have drawn strength from it because she continued. “She refused to even take holiday, only called in sick twice in the eight years she was there. I wanted her to quit. Live your life, I told her, don’t spend it wasting away in some office.”

“ She didn’t take that very well?”

Mrs Hatch’s smile was bitter as she put down her teacup. “I should say not. She started yelling at me that I should be glad we raised a hard-worker, that she’d rise to the top in ten years and then we’d be thanking her when she could buy us whatever we wanted. I told her that what I wanted was a daughter, not a robot.” Tears began making their way down her cheek and she hiccuped, pulling a tissue from her sleeve. “I loved my little girl more than anything in this world Mr Cyrus,” she said. “You have to understand, I  _ missed _ her. Her house is around the corner from here and we hadn’t seen her in two months before she...” She blew her nose. Mr Hatch murmured something but she shook her head and her fingers tightened around his. “I just wanted her to do something other than work. My friend Marjorie has a sister and she has a son around Fran’s age who lives nearby her office. I was pushing too hard with it, trying to set something up. Well… you know how kids are, as soon you tell them to do something they dig their heels in.”

“ She refused to go.”

Mrs Hatch nodded. “She did. And I got so frustrated because I was  _ worried _ about her! She’d been getting stress headaches and hadn’t been sleeping and she sounded so tired over the phone. I thought it would be good for her to have a nice evening out, even if nothing came of it. I should have just told her that I loved her. Instead... I told her that she… that she was going to end up old and alone with nothing but a television for company.” Mrs Hatch buried her face in her hands, tugging her left out of Mr Hatch’s grip. Mr Hatch leaned over to pat her on the shoulder.

“ You couldn’t’ve known, Lucy,” he said quietly, then to Castiel. “I hope your investigation is worth upsetting my wife for Mr Cyrus. Worst day of our lives but there wasn’t a damn thing suspicious about it. Would be easier on all of us if there were. And I hope to God above that you never have to  _ understand _ .”

_ God is the  _ reason  _ I understand _ . Cas thought, drawing in a deep breath and resisting the urge to shout at Mr Hatch. He was just a grieving father, one who knew that someone he loved may have played a part in their child’s death. They weren’t very different at all. He placed his barely-touched tea back on the tray and stood.

“ I apologise if we have caused you further grief. It would probably be best if we take our leave. Thank you for your time. Mr Blake.” The last was to Jacob, who stood too, flicking some cookie crumbs from his jacket before turning to follow.

Jacob apparently didn’t mind Cas taking the lead—something Sam and Dean never gave him the chance to do—though Cas suspected that it was less deference and more laziness. Over their brief acquaintance Jacob had given him the impression that he was the kind of hunter who lost interest quickly if there wasn’t something to kill straight away. Cas would have been surprised he’d even stuck around this town for so long, but the one thing he seemed to hate more than a slow hunt was a secret he wasn’t in on. He needled Cas for information about the Winchesters, why Cas was here instead of with them, coming up with all kinds of ridiculous theories that he seemed to hope would annoy Cas into answering. Cas gave him the basics, the possible changes to hunting was something that affected all of them after all, keeping it a secret would do no good, but he knew he wasn’t very subtle about changing the subject when the Winchesters came up. He wasn’t even really sure why. He and Sam were still very much in communication so he was hardly estranged from them. It had been his choice to leave and he stood by that decision.

He still missed them though.

He missed the easy camaraderie, the jokes, the laughter, the trust. He missed feeling warm when he looked at them, content that this was his family and that they could weather anything.

Part of him was afraid that if he went back, it wouldn’t feel like that anymore. Maybe it never would again.   
  
Cas couldn’t deal with that on top of his grief for Jack. He couldn’t lose the rest of his family too. No. Better by far that he stay away for now. Besides, Cope needed him here.

“ He was rude.” Jacob said as they got back into the car. Immediately he began rummaging around in the door pocket for a cigarette and lit up. “You’d think we were accusing Mrs Hatch of something the way he reacted.”

Shaking his head, Cas watched the little house out the window before the car rolled it out of view. Mrs Hatch had gladly shown him around the cluttered living space, pointing out each of the photos and recalling its story. A picture of Fran in the hospital when she was born, her first day of school, various holidays and sports days and a framed certificate of her diploma. Mrs Hatch even dug out a little jar that she’d kept her daughter’s baby teeth in. Mr Hatch had been stoic and quiet through all of it, but Cas had seen the mix of pain and pride in his eyes as he too remembered. “No,” he said, “he just doesn’t want to see his wife cry anymore.”

Jacob glanced at him, his raised eyebrows visible even through the smoke, but he changed the subject nonetheless.

“ We got nothing useful out of them anyway, cousin. The office she worked at is out of town and too far for that to be a regular place for this thing to go.”

“ You think it was targeting her specifically?”

“ Why? She was about as uninteresting as it gets. Not exactly a stunner and a boring workaholic to boot. And if she never did anything but work she couldn’t be around town enough to attract attention.”

“ I suppose,” Cas said uneasily. “It certainly raises questions about how people are getting the venom into their systems. I thought perhaps the bar but if Fran never went there...”

“ Then it’s unlikely.”

They conducted an interview at the house of Warren Phelps’ crush, a fifteen-year-old cheerleader called Stacy. Her parents stood behind her, glaring up a storm as the two of them did their best to navigate the awkward waters of trying to find out exactly how the rejection had gone down without sounding like that was the cause of Warren’s death. It was an uncomfortable time for all of them. Apparently, Stacy had never even spoken to Warren. He had sat behind her in Math and two rows over in History and she’d seen him at a few of the school’s football games but other than that, they’d never interacted. Castiel wondered how it could possibly have come as a shock to Warren that Stacy had said no. He’d practically screamed his invite at her, probably out of nerves, but enough to make a bad impression on a near-stranger. Still, teenagers were hardly known for being reasonable, and from his file, Warren had been particularly impulsive. It was a tragedy, Stacy’s parents told them repeatedly as they were shown, very firmly, to the door. They couldn’t imagine what the poor Phelpses were going through, but it was nothing to do with Stacy.

They lapsed back into silence as they headed to the house Mrs Ramos was staying in. Apparently she was living with one of their neighbours, a Mr Paul Howther, who was the man she’d left her husband for. She was alone when she received them. She told them Mr Howther was at work and that she’d rather do this without him anyway. She looked like she’d been crying recently, her eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot and her face was pale where her arms were tan. Even with all that, and her dark hair falling in limp tangles over her shoulders, she was still incredibly striking. She was sturdily built, with thick muscles and a small chest, hardly the type that Castiel had come to learn was most coveted in the US, but there was a dare in her eyes, and the way that she carried herself, with a surety that very few seemed to possess, was undoubtedly attractive.

Jacob looked a little taken-aback when she answered the door, but quickly recovered himself and graciously accepted when she offered to take their coats. Jacob held out a silver pen and asked her if she would sign a consent form to say that she was happy for her statement to be ‘published’, even though Cas assured her that it would go through him first. It wasn’t exactly the smoothest partnership, an FBI agent and a journalist, but as they had already established their identities before meeting, they had to make do, and although Jacob had suggested splitting up for the interviews, Cas wanted to hear what each person had to say for himself.

“ You can call me Sylvia,” she said, taking the pen and scrawling her name on the piece of paper that Jacob had quickly typed up and printed at the local library that morning. Cas had almost driven them back there for him to redo it, but they’d already been running late and Jacob assured him that nobody would even notice the typo. Cas had had to bite his tongue to keep from pointing out that there was more than one typo, and a frankly perplexing use of a semicolon, but Sylvia barely blinked.

Unlike at the Hatch’s, Sylvia didn’t sit them down and fuss over them, offering them tea or cookies. Instead, she led them into the kitchen, where she was apparently in the middle of preparing a large pot of soup for lunch. She chopped vegetables while she talked, and barely looked at them throughout the whole interview. Ordinarily, Cas would have viewed this as suspicious, but taking in the slight hitch in her breath as she talked about her husband, and the way she was almost constantly moving, and given the sparkling state of the kitchen, Sylvia was not one for idle time. She wasn’t unaffected, far from it.

“ Stefan and I had a long and mostly happy marriage,” she told them while peeling carrots. Her voice was brisk, stating facts, and Cas recognised a trait that he saw often in Sam of someone holding back their pain. “He was a good man and I loved him and he cared for me too. A little more than I thought, as it turned out. I never would’ve left him if I’d known he was suicidal, if I’d known that I could trigger that part of him. He was my best friend and no matter what else happened between us, I didn’t want that to change.”

“ Why’d you leave him, then?” Jacob asked.

Sylvia shot him a hard look.

I didn’t leave him for Paul, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she said. “That’s what everyone’s saying but it’s not true. I barely know Paul, I only met him last month. A quick fling in no way stands against fourteen years of companionship. I left him for me. I suppose I just… got bored of comfortable. I’ve been with Stefan since before I transitioned. We moved here after we married and just… settled. There were no surprises with us, no secrets. It was nice but I’m thirty-five. I wanted something new, something exciting. I wanted a break from the humdrum.” She laughed bitterly and gestured at the chopping board with her knife. “As you can see, that worked out just splendidly.”

She sighed then, heavy and sad. “I would’ve come back to him eventually. I wanted to sit him down and explain everything once he’d had time to adjust to the idea but… I didn’t get the chance.”

“ I’m sorry.” Again, there he was with those two, pointless words. He should’ve learned after Lauren and held them in. But he  _ felt _ sorry. The people of this town didn’t deserve the scale of grief that he’d seen today. Stacy’s innocent world of cheerleading and classes had been horribly shaken, the Hatches were drowning in guilt, Lauren had found her sister with half her head missing and Mrs Ramos had lost her husband and best friend because of an understandable urge for adventure.

And there wasn’t a connection between any of them.

Cas rubbed at his temple. He was pretty sure a headache would take up residence soon. Something so ridiculously simple and frustrating and so  _ human _ . He hated it, this slow, uncertain decline of his powers. What was he already missing that he wouldn’t know until it was too late? Had he spoken to an animal lately? Could he still feel Dean’s longing? Would his wings’ shadows manifest if he tried?

Sylvia dropped the next lot of vegetables into the slowly simmering stock. The sound brought him back to himself and he looked up. She hadn’t responded to his apology, which was fair enough, and he couldn’t think of anything else to ask her.

“ What will you do now?” That came from Jacob.

Sylvia turned away from the stove and faced him. “Sell the house,” she said. “Move away. Start again. What else can I do?”

Xxx

They found themselves back at Rosco’s for dinner. The food was greasy and bland and Cas was very glad that he had not yet sunken into humanity so far as to need more than a few fries for his hunger to go away. Jacob apparently couldn’t even stomach that when his food arrived, the onion rings alone looked questionable enough to turn him faintly green. They had originally planned to visit Mary Guthrie’s killer in the jail, but Cas had said there was no point. The interviews had drained him more than he’d thought and he couldn’t face looking a murderer in the eye and hearing his side of things. He was tired of people excusing their cruelty on the grounds of pain, ignoring of course the pain that their own actions caused. Not that Dean was oblivious to that but—

He dragged himself away from that train of thought. Had he really grown so dependent on the Winchesters that every one of his thoughts connected back to them in some way? Apparently so.

“ So we’re still no closer to finding the thing.” Jacob said, bringing up his feet to stretch out along the wall-end of the booth.   
  


Cas shifted away, rolling his eyes. “I wouldn’t say that,” he said. “We got some valuable information. I think most of the town has been dosed somehow. A lot of impulsive romantic escapades and relationship drama. That sort of ties in with my wraith theory but… I’m not convinced that’s what it is anymore. If it were, why doesn’t the wraith seem to be feeding? Suicide risks are hard to detect and with an entire town to keep an eye on, it’s pretty unlikely that it would know where to be at the exact time in order to feed and escape detection. Francesca Hatch was  _ two hours _ away. It just doesn’t make sense. And if it isn’t feeding then what is its goal?”

Jacob shrugged, an exaggerated thing. “No idea, cousin. Maybe this town’s a write-off.”

“ You don’t mean that or you wouldn’t still be here,” Cas said, smiling.

“ Yeah, yeah. I’m a sap. Let’s go for a walk,” Jacob began to stand. “It’s too hot in here and the smell of what they call food is making me gag.”

“ Alright.”

The air was cool and pleasant on his skin when they left Rosco’s, the slight wind ruffling under his trenchcoat. He hadn’t realised it but now that he was outside he could tell that he  _ had _ been uncomfortably warm. Another effect of his depleting grace. This slow transition to human was more disconcerting than when Metatron had removed his grace and thrown him unceremoniously back to Earth. At least then he’d known what he’d lost. Now, his powers were patchy and unreliable. He  _ was _ still more than human, but he was afraid to test exactly  _ how _ . Experimenting would only drain his grace faster, but saving it until he was desperately in need had its own risks.

Jacob, unaware of Cas’ churning mind, took a left down one of the dirt paths that bordered a crop field.

“ You’re not smoking?” Cas asked him dryly.

“ Bad habit,” Jacob said with a grin.

They spent a while longer talking through the case as they passed row after row of wheat, Cas still trying to puzzle out what they were missing.

“ I don’t think it’s a wraith,” he said eventually. “None of it fits for that.”

“ What then?”

“ I don’t know. Something that has the venom of a siren but isn’t, something that doesn’t have a motive as simple as survival. Not a demon, but something that likes to observe the effect it has on a large scale, something...” He trailed off, his eyes widening as it clicked. “I know what it is.”

“ You do?” Jacob turned to face him fully, that easy grin still in place. Cas squinted at him. There was something…  _ wrong _ with that face that he hadn’t realised before. It was still difficult to make out his features, even without smoke obscuring it. He blinked, trying to get his eyes to focus, and that grin only slid wider, shifting and rolling with the rest of his face.

“ What...?” Cas managed, stumbling back a step as Jacob advanced.

“ It took you long enough, cousin. I thought I was busted the second you walked over to my table. But then you called me  _ Jacob _ .”

“ I—”

“ I mean, I’d heard stories of how weak you were, but I didn’t think you were stupid. I’ve got a good thing going in this town. An entertaining soap opera to watch while the world ends. Reality television at its finest. I’m not going to let you ruin that.”

Anger flooded Cas then. Anger at the creature before him for toying with these people’s lives, their loves; for taking them and twisting them and using them just like Chuck. He was done with it, furious that even with the entirety of existence coming to an end, creatures like this still couldn’t find it in themselves to be kind.

His angel blade slid down his sleeve and he caught it. If he could do nothing else, he would ensure that at least this town had someone fighting on their side.


	8. Gun Control

Turned out, these new ghosts weren’t impervious to iron. Sam swiped his fireplace poker through the translucent form of Mrs Hennesy with only a light tug of resistance. That resistance was new, but Mrs Hennesy vanished all the same.

“ Awesome!” Dean crowed, slapping Sam on the back. “Looks like we’re not completely starting over.”

“ Yeah,” Sam said, tossing him a shovel and taking up a defensive position around the grave. “Now get digging.”

Mrs Hennesy only made three more appearances before Dean hit wood. Like Rowena had said, salt had no effect, and Rowena’s banishing spell sent her away for a few seconds, but considering how Rowena stumbled a little with the effort, that was far too powerful a spell to have so little effect. Sam was sure there was a reason for it. There had to be, especially because iron still worked just as well as it always had. If Chuck was trying to mess things up, just ’cause, surely he wouldn’t have left that one aspect for them to work off.

He’d got word from another hunter in Louisiana a few hours ago that he’d just finished off a ghost using all the normal methods and nothing had seemed different. Sam had requested the case info, which should actually be in his email inbox by now, and put the word out through Jody and the others that he wanted basic info on all cases worked over the past week or so. Jody was pretty sure half the people on her contacts list would refuse the ‘homework’, but that she’d send on anything she found. Perhaps he shouldn’t let himself get so distracted thinking about other ghosts while currently waiting for one to appear but he couldn’t help it. The mystery was bugging him and all he wanted to do was hunker down and solve it.

He’d filed away half a dozen theories before Mrs Hennesy popped up again, this time immediately raising a hand to throw him aside. He rolled with the impact and was back on his feet in seconds, sprinting towards her with his poker ready to swing when she screamed, fire curling at her skirts and quickly spreading upwards until there was nothing left. The graveyard fell still and Sam dropped the poker, suddenly overwhelmed with the deja vu of standing in a cemetery holding an iron spike. He looked down at it and expected to see gore crusted onto the end, but there was only a little mud where it had landed.

Forcing a breath, Sam looked around and his eyes fell on Rowena, who was staring back at him, concern written in her face. Embarrassed, he stooped to pick up the poker again and turned away, to where Dean was standing over an open grave fire, looking smug. The flames sent shadows skittering across his face and Sam was again reminded of that  _ other _ Dean, the one with one eye and malice in his every movement. He shook himself quickly and his brother returned, warming his hands over the fire like a true psychopath. Sam smiled. Dean wasn’t that thing, would never again be that thing. But knowing that he  _ had been _ that thing still hurt Sam’s heart.

They waited a little while to make sure the body burned properly and then re-packed the grave to smother the fire. Rowena, of course, opted to go wait in the car for that part, and the brothers found her sitting primly in the passenger seat of their freshly-stolen Ford. They had lasted all of twenty minutes on the bench of Rowena’s cramped Coupe before both brothers insisted that they found their own ride for the journey to Nebraska. Sam’s legs thanked him, and he was pretty sure Rowena had been pleased to get some space back too.

“ Surely there’s a nicer place we could’ve stayed?” She griped when they parked back next to the sleek Coupe. The motel rooms they’d ended up with weren’t as small as Sam had feared from the outside, but they were hardly  _ The Lavender Suite _ . The décor was straight out of the 70s, with all the wear and tear those decades had seen. The carpet was a hideous brown colour with piss-yellow swirls in it, dirty and stamped down from hundreds of pairs of feet. The curtains were brown too, and the peeling, warped wallpaper was the same colour as Cas’ coat. Overall, it made the rooms look a lot smaller and darker than they were. The windows were a decent size, and though the bathrooms were tiny, with blue rust eating away at the taps and cracks in the porcelain, they were at least clean.

They all piled out and Sam looked down at her put-out face, amused, while Dean headed straight in to claim the shower first, leaving Sam to grab the duffle bag from the trunk of the Ford. “You haven’t had enough pampering to last you a few days?”

“ You can’t overdose on comfort, Samuel,” she told him. “And one measly massage hardly counts as pampering. It’s a necessity.”

A laugh bubbled out of him. “Right.”

“ Don’t laugh! If there are bedbugs I’m holding you personally responsible.”

“ Oh no,” he teased. “I’m terrified, Rowena, really.”

She smacked him on the arm.

Still grinning, Sam slammed the trunk closed.

“ Thanks for dragging him along to that,” he said as Rowena fell into step with him on the way to their rooms. “I think he needed it.”

“ Well, he never would have gone otherwise and I daresay we’ll both benefit from it for at least a few more hours.”

“ Careful,” he warned. “You keep doing stuff like that and I might actually start thinking you’re a good person.”

“ Oh hush,” Rowena said, smacking his arm again, but softer this time, a smile on her own face. “I’ve got a reputation to maintain.”

Despite her secret-good-person status, Sam was pretty sure if she’d kept complaining about their new accommodations, she and Dean would have ended up in a full-scale row, so Sam was grateful when she came to their room after she’d cleaned up and didn’t say a word about the terrible water pressure that Dean had been bitching about for the past ten minutes.

Sam was already sitting at the table, his phone in front of him, and barely spared her a glance as she took the other chair. Most of his focus was on the information that both the hunter in Louisiana and Jody had managed to compile and send him in the few hours it had taken to find, dig up and subsequently torch a grave.

Dean set a fresh mug of coffee down in front of him, and a tea for Rowena before perching on the arm of the sofa with his own mug. Sam kept scrolling, frowning at the tiny screen. He wished they had a laptop so that flipping through different files (that took ages to download) would be less fiddly than it was on his phone, but he was making do. Without looking up, Sam reached his left hand out for the mug’s handle and took a quick sip. None of them spoke, and after a while Sam realised that they were waiting for him to say something. He dragged his eyes from his phone and grabbed for his coffee. It was cold. Huh, how long had he been working?

“ I called them ‘new ghosts’ before,” he said. “And I think that’s what they are. From what I can find, most ghosts are still behaving normally, it’s only the ones that have appeared in the last few days that hunters are struggling with. But that’s not the case with other things. Werewolves, vamps, ghouls, a rugaru, those are all more powerful, doesn’t matter how long ago they were made. Jody did some digging and figured that her vamp had been turned in the 1800s. David took out a nest and some of them had only been turned minutes before his group arrived, but they were all crazy strong and seemed impervious to dead man’s blood. They lost four of their group.”

“ Damn.” Dean said. He met Sam’s eyes and they shared the look they always shared when they heard about another hunter lost. It wasn’t grief exactly, they hadn’t known these guys—Sam only knew David—but it was the understanding that the world had lost another defender.

“ Yeah. Apparently they got really unlucky, this group seemed to be used to fighting together, it wasn’t the usual fangs and flesh chaos, they were organised. And in the middle of the fight another vamp joined them, a lone one with no nest. He must’ve been passing by and heard the commotion or something. Bad luck.”

“ Are you sure?”

Sam turned his head to blink at Rowena. “What do you mean?”

She tilted her chin to the side, her hair falling from where she’d tucked it behind her ear. “Well… if things are going squiffy with monsters all round, can you really assume David and his friends just had the bad luck to run into a trained vampire army? That somehow attracted more help?”

“ It happens,” Dean said, though he sounded unsure. “Not all nests are the same. Some are like fraternities, others like a militia. It usually depends on their leader.”

“ True,” Rowena conceded. “Just a thought.”

Sam frowned, trying to factor in Rowena’s theory to the facts he knew and came up empty.

“ I can’t see how it wouldn’t just be a coincidence. We don’t have enough data. But I’ve got a horrible feeling that you’re right.”

“ Are there no other… bad luck kind of cases?” Rowena asked.

Sam shook his head. “Not to that extent. Most of the recent hunts have been small, just one or two things at a time. The strength is a big issue but… Gimme a sec.”

Sam turned back to his phone, but instead of flipping through tabs he went to his contacts, scrolled a little way, and pressed call.

“ Howdy.”

“ Garth? Hey. It’s Sam.”

“ Sam?!” Garth’s voice turned shifty immediately. “Hey man, I was gonna call but it took us a couple days to even figure out what was going on and then when I tried your phone just went to voicemail and I didn’t exactly wanna pass the message on to any other hunters, you know? In case they get the wrong—”

The abrupt descent into rambling caught Sam so off guard that he let it go on far longer than he should, but at the tinge of fear in Garth’s voice he interrupted. “Hold up. Take a breath, okay? Start from the top. What happened?”

He saw concern rapidly fill Dean’s features, so he added, “Are Bess and the kids okay?”

“ Depends what you mean by ‘okay’,” Garth said with a nervous little laugh. “We’re all a little shaken up. But we’re holed up at home and we’ve got no plans on goin’ anywhere for a little while. So you won’t be getting any hunting reports from me, sorry.”

Sam gave Dean a nod and he relaxed minutely.

“ What’s going on, Garth? Here, I’ll put you on speaker.”

He laid the phone on the table and pressed the speaker button, Dean came to stand by them, hands planted on the wood. Rowena leaned forward curiously.

“ We’ve all gone through… some changes,” Garth said slowly. “It’s weird, man. First it was breaking glasses by holdin’ ’em too tight and then Gertie threw her doll so hard it nearly went through the wall.”

“ So… werewolf strength times ten.” Dean said.

“ And then some.” Garth confirmed. “Faster reflexes too. And just yesterday, Bess was dustin’ off my old hunting tools and accidentally touched a silver bullet, but it didn’t hurt her! She brought it down to show me and I tried it too. I guess we’re immune now.”

“ Anything else?” Sam pressed. “You said you were freaked out but those all sound like good things.”

“ Always the observant one, huh, Sam?” Garth said. Then he sighed. “Yeah, there’s somethin’ else. It took us a little while to figure out what it  _ was _ but… we can hear each other’s thoughts now, and any other werewolf out there that beams a message into our heads. It’s been a real roller-coaster. At first, I thought it was just a real bad headache, but then it became voices and we were just kind of screaming at each other in our minds, it really scared the kids. Me and Bess had to try and think calming thoughts ’cause they could tell if we were nervous, you know? And we can’t do anything about those inconsiderate a-holes blurting whatever they feel like into their heads. It’s petered out a little now though as we’ve started to figure out what’s happening, but we get the occasional flare-up.”

“ A telepathic link?” Rowena said, seeming unable to stop herself.

“ Y-yeah.” Sam heard Garth’s hesitation at the unfamiliar voice but seemed to trust Sam and Dean enough not to question it. “I mean, it was crazy at first but it settled pretty quick. It’s strongest with Bess and the kids, a little less strong with her daddy, at least for me. It’s like there are different… I don’t know… pathways, I guess? Like one for my family, one for other wolves I know, one for strangers. Distance don’t seem to be a factor either, there were a lot of different languages in the mess. But me and Bess have been experimenting a little with it; turns out you can target a specific wolf, or a radius, or even a group of individuals. It’s kinda like a group call, but without the phone. It’s actually been really useful looking after the twins. Now me and Bess know when they’re hungry, when they need their diapers changed, or when little Sam’s crying because he dropped his favourite toy.”

“ Little Sam?” Sam asked, a small warmth sparking in his centre. He felt the slow spread of a smile across his face. “Garth, did you name your twins after us?”

“ Sure did. Little Sam and little Castiel.”

Rowena snorted loudly, Sam had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. Dean’s face, which had been just as warm and fuzzy as he was sure his own was, instantly fell into something truly offended.

“ Seriously?”

“ Totally,” Garth said, completely breezing past the fact that Dean had been left out of his child-naming. “I wanted you guys to be the godparents but Bess made a pretty good case about the fact that you three get into more trouble than a kitten in a glass museum, so they’re probably safer with… you know, anyone else.”

“ Well, thanks for thinking of us anyway.” Sam said, still holding back his laughter at Dean’s expression.

“ Yeah… thanks for thinking of  _ all _ of us.” Dean said, very obviously pouting. Sam dared a glance at Rowena, who had stuffed her knuckle in her mouth, shoulders shaking with mirth.

“ No problem. We love you guys.”

“ We love you too, Garth,” Sam said quickly, partly because it was true and partly because it was easier than to try and manoeuvre his way around saying it like Dean would have.

“ _ Anyway, _ ” Dean said pointedly, still looking a little pissed, though he was running his thumb down his cheek like he did when he was thinking. “So, a psychic connection between your kind, extra-super-strength and a crazy high tolerance for your usual kryptonite. Sounds like you guys all became Alphas.”

“ What?” Sam, Garth and Rowena said all at once.

“ Are you serious? I mean, I knew it was weird but—” Garth said, his breathing quickening down the phone. “Wow.”

“ I can’t think of anything else like that. Can you?” Dean continued, looking around at Sam and Rowena, lingering on Sam. His eyes were wide and a little afraid, as though he was waiting for Sam to contradict him, to have his own theory that was more correct. He  _ still _ didn’t think he was smart enough to figure out something like this. Sam just shook his head, fully aware of the fact that his brother was a genius, and stored away the details of every past case he’d ever been on. Sam drew his conclusions from evidence, from reliable sources and a mass of data, but Dean went by his own experiences, and sometimes, like now, he’d find a solution with a gut-quick reaction while Sam was still at the ‘gathering information’ stage. Both styles had their uses, but just because Sam was the type to show his working with reports and logical thinking, Dean had always deemed him the smart one.

Sometimes he hated the trust Dean placed in him, other times he craved it. Now, he didn’t have the energy to figure out which it was.

“ That fits.” Sam said after a moment. “So you think the same has been happening for other things too?”

Dean shrugged. “It makes sense. And it explains why those vamps were as coordinated as they were, even the newbies. If God wants to make things harder for us this is an easy way to do it, instead of thinking of something new he’s just powering everything up to a template he’s already got.”

“ True. Creativity doesn’t exactly seem to be his priority right now.”

“ The opposite really,” Rowena chimed in.

“ You guys pissed God off so bad that he turned all non-humans everywhere into like, their final boss forms!” Garth exclaimed. “Bess was right, your lives are far outside any realm of crazy we’ve ever been in.”

“ Thanks for helping us figure this out, Garth.” Sam said, in what he hoped was a calming tone. “And send our love to your family.”

“ Already done. And, uh, guys? You be careful out there, you hear?”

“ Always are,” Dean said, reaching forward to cut off the call, halfway through Garth’s disbelieving snort. “Well, that helps.”

“ Yeah. A lot actually. I’ll put the word out to Jody and the others. Now that we know what we’re dealing with we can actually deal with it.”

“ Definitely,” said Rowena. “One mystery down. Now we have to figure out what’s happening with the ghosts, there’s never been an Alpha ghost so that doesn’t make sense and Sam said only the new ones are behaving oddly.”

“ Right.” Sam agreed, then he did a double-take. Rowena’s input startled a question out of him, because it had only just occurred to him to ask. “Hey, are your powers any different? Any kind of upgrade?”

She shook her head with a small smile. “I’m not sure that’s even possible,” she said smugly. “After getting hold of the  _ Grimoire  _ I’m pretty much maxed out. Besides, witchcraft is a… well, a  _ craft _ . Even those of us who are born need to work at it. You could give a child all the magical potential in the world, but if they don’t know any spells or rituals then they won’t be able to so much as knock a glass off a table. It’s not like angelic power or a creature’s strength; it’s not instinctive in the same kind of way.”

“ Uh, aren’t you guys forgetting the most important thing?” Dean asked, looking incredulously between them.

“ What?”

“ _ God _ , the bunker, getting back in to grab the gun. What does it matter if all monsters are Alphas now or what’s going on with the ghosts if the world’s still gonna end regardless? We need that gun, and we need to find Chuck.”

“ I doubt that finding him is gonna be the issue,” Sam pointed out. “He’ll pop up when he deems it plot-relevant. And we still don’t know the  _ gun _ is what young me was trying to tell us about.”

“ Not this again.” Rowena sighed, exasperated. “I thought we agreed that it made no difference unless we figure out a way back  _ in _ .”

“ _ And _ a way to kill the thing in there,” Sam said.

“ Then  _ that’s _ our new priority, not whatever the hell’s going on with the ghosts. It doesn’t matter. We can figure that out  _ after _ we get the gun.  _ Or whatever _ .” He added pointedly glaring at Rowena.

“ Fine,” she said waspishly. “It shouldn’t be hard. We just have to find a way to undo decades of various protective warding, some of which is embedded in the very foundations, some of which the method of creation is lost to time, some of which was put up by myself and all of which is probably reinforced by God, or will at least trigger  _ some _ kind of reaction that will be impossible to prepare for. All without providing an opportunity for whatever is in there to be unleashed upon the world  _ and  _ we have to kill it, although of course, I’m going to be useless in that regard seeing as you won’t even tell me what it is!”

Sam shifted uncomfortably in his seat and as he did so, felt the distinct  _ lack _ of a pressure in his waistband. Panic flared in him but he tried to keep his face neutral as he reached around to feel where the gun should be. It wasn’t there. His heart jumped into his throat as he furiously thought through the past few hours. He took the gun from under the mattress that morning, definitely. He had it while they were driving because it was hard to sit comfortably in a car seat with a gun pressing up against fading bruises. He hadn’t bothered trying to hide it in the motel room because they’d pretty much headed straight back out to the cemetery.

He remembered being tossed aside by Mrs Hennesy and cursed himself for being so stupid. He hadn’t thought to check for the gun afterwards, though it would have been all too easy for it to fall from its hiding spot.

Sam stood abruptly. “I’m starving. I saw a Chinese across town. I’ll go get us some food.”

Dean stared at him as he snatched up the Ford’s keys from the nightstand.

“ Now?” he asked, as though getting food in the middle of an argument wasn’t something Dean had done many times. Admittedly, it wasn’t something Sam usually did, but he needed to get back to that graveyard. If someone found the gun…

He paused when he was halfway out the door. “Dean… I think you should tell Rowena what’s in the bunker.”

The colour drained from Dean’s face. “Really?”

“ She’s right. If we want her help to try and kill it she needs to be prepared.”

Dean looked a little betrayed that Sam was leaving him to have this tough conversation on his own, but he needed something that would keep both of them busy until he got back.

He had just unlocked the car when he heard Rowena call out behind him. “One moment, Samuel, I have a very specific order.”

Sam gritted his teeth but turned. Rowena walked quickly towards him.

“ Is this what you’re going to be looking for?” She hissed. Angling herself so that there was no way Dean could see if he was looking out the window, Rowena pulled out the handle of a gun from her jacket pocket. A handle he was  _ very _ familiar with. “This is the gun isn’t it? The one Dean’s so obsessed with.”

Sam licked his lips nervously but nodded. Rowena pushed the handle back into her pocket, expression grim. “I won’t say a word,” she promised, “but we  _ will _ talk about this later, Samuel.”

Sam nodded again and ducked his head. Crap.

Rowena reached up to pat his cheek, speaking louder now. “Mine's beef in black bean sauce, duck spring rolls and egg fried rice. There’s a dear.”

Sighing heavily, he watched her turn on her heel and head back into the room. He opened the car door and slid into the driver’s seat. Looks like he was just doing a food run after all.

Xxx

Dean watched Sam from the window as he pulled away, his arms folded and a scowl on his face. He was pissed that Sam was begging out of this talk, a talk that he really,  _ really _ didn’t want to have. Telling Sam had been hard enough and he’d  _ seen _ it. How could he tell Rowena? How could he even describe it to her in a way that she’d understand?

Rowena came back in, eyes sharp as they fixed on him.

“ You heard Sam,” she said. “Now talk.”

Dean rolled his head around on his neck and brought one of his hands up to pinch the bridge of his nose, taking a moment to just  _ breathe _ .

“ Fine.”

Rowena promptly sat on the sofa and stared up at him expectantly.

Dean, because just the thought of having this conversation was making him anxious and jittery and really,  _ really _ wish that this shithole motel room had a minibar he could plunder, started pacing in front of her.

“ Okay,” he began after a few moments of this. “So...”

He caught her eye, lost his nerve and began pacing again. This process repeated itself twice before Rowena seemed to run out of patience.

“ Oh, for heaven’s sake, Dean! Just spit it out!”

“ It’s  _ me _ , okay?” Dean exploded. “The thing in the bunker, most terrifying monster we’ve ever faced. It’s me.”

Rowena took a moment to blink at him.

“ Now, don’t take this the wrong way,” she said, “I know you’re… sensitive about these things, but the reason you’re here is because your evil selves were already defeated.”

“ This is different,” Dean insisted. “It’s not me as a demon, with all a demon’s weaknesses, it’s not Michael using my body. It’s what my soul was when I was in Hell. It’s the thing that apprenticed at Alastair’s side. It only knows pain, only knows blood. It’s been taken apart and sewn back together more times than it can remember. It’s not afraid of anything but Alastair. It can’t die, no matter what you do to it, it’s all been done before.”

He couldn’t meet her eyes as he spoke and he hated himself for it, hated how much this thing scared him. It had been more than a decade since he’d been it, but it was always in him, the knowledge that  _ that _ was what he was at his core. He hated admitting his fear to a once-enemy. It felt like weakness.

“ Oh,” she said softly. “Thank you for telling me, Dean.”

Dean raised his eyes and saw something surprising echoed back at him from Rowena’s face, kindness. Not that Rowena couldn’t be kind when she wanted to be, but it usually came along with a motive, or a healthy dose of snark to cover it.

Dean cleared his throat. “Yeah, well… like Sam said, you need to know.”

“ We’ll find a way to kill it,” she said firmly. “We will.”

“ We’ve gotta. ’Cause if we don’t then we’re not gettin’ that gun, and without it we don’t stand a chance against Chuck.”

“ What makes you so sure that it _ is _ the gun?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Not you too.”

She threw up her hands. “I’m just playing Devil’s advocate. _ What if _ ? The gun wasn’t mentioned by name as being the thing to defeat Chuck. Now, obviously, it’s a powerful weapon, but if it kills the person wielding it too then we should explore every other possibility, don’t you think? Now, knowing you, you’re going to be the one insistent on taking the shot, and if that’s what it comes to then I’m not going to stop you. All I’m saying is that for Sam’s sake, please don’t throw your life away unless you have to. Don’t you think he’s lost enough lately?” Her voice was gentle, almost hesitant, and Dean was reminded, painfully and unexpectedly, of Mary.

That huge, dark hole in his centre yawned wide as he thought of his mother, her kind face, the warmth in the eyes she shared with him, her bright laugh and her uncompromising love for her sons. Unknowingly, Rowena had hit on the point he knew she would have, because she knew that causing Sam pain was the only thing that might make him think twice.

He swallowed hard. “I’ll do it if it needs to be done,” he said eventually. “But you’re right.  _ He’s  _ right. We should look at other options too. I just can’t think of anything else to look for. We don’t have any other kind of weapon that can hurt God, and I’m pretty sure there ain’t a book in the library with a how-to guide. If all we can do is buy enough time to get in, grab something and get out, I’m gonna go for the gun, because I  _ know _ that it’s our best chance, at least right now.”

“ We have time,” Rowena said. “God wouldn’t bother upgrading the world’s monsters or changing the ghosts if he was going to make this a slow process. He’s dragging it out, which gives us the chance to find something that doesn’t leave one of you dead.”

“ Gotta say, I’m surprised you care that much,” Dean said, dropping himself onto the sofa next to her. “I didn’t think we were your favourite people.”

“ Of course you are,” she said with a little laugh. “Who else do I have?”

Dean glanced over at her, eyebrows raised, but one look at her expression made him think better of saying anything. Instead he picked up the remote and switched on the ancient TV, flipping through channels until he found one that didn’t dissolve into static every twenty seconds. It was some old movie about two dogs and a cat who had apparently lost their owners somewhere and were trying to get home.

Maybe it was just a stupid movie, but he could sympathise with that.

Sam returned not long after with more food than was probably necessary (which Dean was  _ definitely  _ not gonna complain about, considering it was  _ Sam,  _ who took any opportunity to try and cut grease out of Dean’s diet) and they divided it up and ate companionably while the TV played movies exclusively from the early 90s one after the other.

It was kind of a repeat of the previous night, with a generally light tone, though there was something dark at the edges that had nothing to do with the horrible brown over everything. He caught a troubled expression on Sam’s face a couple of times, though he shook his head when Dean asked what was wrong.

It was nearly eleven when they called it a night and Rowena went back to her room. Sam checked his phone and frowned and Dean, who had just put the leftovers in the mini-fridge for breakfast, kicked the fridge door shut and threw up his hands.

“ What is it? You’ve been moping all night.”

“ Nothing,” Sam said, then he cleared his throat. “Just tired. And a little sore from being tossed around a graveyard, you know?”

Dean grinned, “Yeah. We’re not twenty anymore, kiddo.”

“ And yet you still call me kiddo.”

“ Brother’s rights. You’ll be kiddo to me when you’re pushing ninety.”

Sam snorted. “Like you’re gonna make it to ninety. I  _ know _ you’re gonna finish off all of those leftovers in the morning.”

“ You don’t know that, Rowena might want some,” Dean said with a grin. “Kiddo.”

Sam rolled his eyes and glanced at his phone again before plugging it in to charge overnight on the table. Dean was only mildly annoyed that he’d been stuck with the burner while Sam had got himself a shiny new (well… second-hand) smartphone on his silver and guns shopping trip. Admittedly, Dean didn’t have much use for a phone at the moment. Anyone who wanted to send them info or whatever would call Sam and seeing as Sam was here and Cas wasn’t talking to him, there was no one else who’d call him. Still, he didn’t like being without one, and if he and Sam got separated, then he’d be grateful to have it.

Xxx

The next morning, Dean and Rowena shared the leftovers with glee while Sam went out to grab coffee and probably some kind of fancy pastry that he could kid himself wasn’t just butter and sugar. After all their discoveries the night before  _ and _ deceptively comfortable beds, despite the tacky brown and orange striped sheets, the mood was pretty high. Okay, so they didn’t have any new leads on God, or the bunker, but they’d got the word out through Jody that all monsters (except ghosts) were Alphas now, and that any ghost that had showed up  _ after _ Chuck kickstarted the apocalypse would be unaffected by salt. Hunters would be better prepared at least, if still outmatched. Alphas were a bitch to take down. Decapitation would still work on vamps, but getting close enough to them to try it without at least three entire cadavers’ worth of dead man’s blood to take the edge off their reflexes was still a tall order, and if werewolves were immune to silver now, would a bullet to the heart still work? Of course, cutting off something’s head was always a handy backup. Even if it didn’t kill the thing, it would take long enough for it to heal to separate the parts and bury (or cremate) them in two different states.

It looked like there were gonna be a lot more group hunts from now on. Dean knew that Jody would do her best to insist on it and he could only hope that most of those stubborn idiots (of which he was one) would listen. It was stupid to be hunting alone right now. He felt anxiety ball in his stomach at the thought of Cas taking on an Alpha. He tried to comfort himself with the fact that Cas was an angel, that he was an exceptional fighter and that he was too smart to get caught off guard; besides, Sam mentioned that he’d teamed up with a hunter he knew from Apocalypse World so he wasn’t alone. It didn’t help. Cas’ backup wouldn’t know him the way he and Sam did. They wouldn’t understand the signals Cas used, wouldn’t be able to watch his back as well as they could. He shoved a giant forkful of cold fried rice into his mouth to distract him from his thoughts. He was being ridiculous. Cas was a good hunter and perfectly capable of taking out an Alpha, especially when he was prepared for it. And Sam had texted him to make sure he was.

When Sam came back with hot drinks for all of them, because he was still a good brother, he and Rowena were shoving all the food containers into the trash. They’d devoured it all and Dean at least felt all the better for it. It felt like they’d taken a good few steps forward yesterday, and having a purpose more concrete than taking out a ghost also helped.

He accepted his coffee and took a suspicious test sip before committing, just to make sure Sam hadn’t spiked it with salt or something (because he was still a _ brother _ ), and finding it clean, took a deep gulp and sighed out his satisfaction with a slight puff of warm steam.

“ Thanks Sammy.”

Sam tapped two fingers to his head in a mock-salute and passed Rowena her own to-go cup before collapsing onto the couch and kicking his Big Bird legs up so he could stretch out, grunting as his spine popped, and then sighing in satisfaction as he decompressed. Dean sat at the table, hands curled around his coffee lightly, warming his fingers.

“ So the bunker...” Dean began. “Now that we’ve solved the monster mystery, that’s the next big thing. We need to get in, and we need to know how to deal with that  _ thing  _ when we do.”

“ Right,” Sam said, pulling his phone from his pocket. “Well, Rowena knows the warding. Think you can break enough to get us in?”

Rowena tapped her painted nails against the wood, though where she’d found the time to touch them up was a mystery to Dean.

“ I could,” she said. “If the warding was your problem.”

“ What do you mean?” Sam asked, craning his head around to look at her.

“ Warding isn’t made for humans, Sam. Unless God changed their components specifically, your issue sounds more mechanical. There may be some magical enhancement to the lock itself that I can help with but taking down the warding will just make it more likely for Dean’s… doppelgänger to be able to break out.”

Dean stared resolutely at the table. “Well the key’s melted to nothing and the main door is reinforced to all hell. I’m guessing the manual override I used last time won’t work seeing as Chuck knows about it.”

“ Which leads on to another question.” Sam said, twisting back to his phone. “What does Chuck know?”

“ Everything, right? He’s  _ God _ .”

“ Sure, but he’s not  _ always _ watching. He likes the exciting stuff, right? The drama and the fights and the working cases, he doesn’t care about the parts when we have to go to the grocery store or when we just watch movies. For the guy who, you know,  _ created _ time, he’s pretty impatient.”

“ Yeah, but he already knows we’re gonna try and take him out so he’s probably keeping a close eye.”

“ True.” Sam was quiet for a moment, tapping a few buttons on his phone. “We don’t know enough about his powers or how they work. He can create guns from nothing, he can make an entire graveyard rise up and try to kill us, he can kill nephilim with a snap of his fingers and make every monster on the planet an Alpha, but he couldn’t defeat Amara? He has weaknesses, we just need to know what they are.”

“ Oh sure, why don’t we just go find her?” Dean said, voice heavy with sarcasm. “We can meet for drinks and a friendly ‘how do we kill your brother’ chat.”

“ You think she wouldn’t help us?” Sam asked, and though Dean could only see the back of his head, he could tell he was frowning.

“ Of course she wouldn’t help us. She’s God’s  _ sister _ .”

“ Yeah, but… she likes you.”

Heat crept up his face as he glared at the back of his brother’s head. “And I like Rowena, doesn’t mean I’d shoot you in the face if she asked me to.” He shrugged at her expression. “No offence.”

“ None taken,” she said with a wicked grin. “You just admitted you liked me.”

“ Shut up.”

Sam scoffed, then he sat up and spun around so his legs were draped over the arm of the couch instead, which looked ridiculous and couldn’t be comfortable. “I think it might be worth a shot to ask. She wanted to kill him once, or at least trap him for a few billion years, there can’t be that much love lost there. And even the fact that they’re even back so soon suggests they can’t have been getting on that great on their journey around the multi-verse.”

Dean shook his head. “That’s not enough,” he said. “These are just maybes. If we go after Amara and she kills us instead, then everything is screwed. They’re family, she’s not gonna turn him in.”

“ Not all siblings are as co-dependent as you two,” Rowena put in.

Dean threw his hands up and let them smack the table loudly. “These two are! Literally, remember? We kill one, we have to kill the other too or the balance is thrown out of whack. She knows that!”

“ Which means she might help us trap him instead!” Sam insisted. “That way the balance is maintained and we don’t have to kill her.”

“ You think she’s scared of us, Sam? Really?”

“ I think  _ you’re _ scared,” Sam said, jabbing a finger in his direction, “because last time she had some kind of hold over you and you don’t wanna face her again.”

“ Damn right I don’t!” Dean retorted, hating that his brother was even a little bit right. “But trapping him ain’t enough. Once he gets out, because he  _ will _ , whether it’s next month or a trillion years away, he’s still gonna be writing his stories, if people are still around he’s gonna go right back to playing with them like they’re damn dolls, and if they’re not then he’ll just make some more. And some other versions of us get screwed over. God needs to die, Sam. And we need to do it.”

“ And Amara is the only thing that matches him in power!” Sam argued. “Plus, she knows him better than anyone else. She can  _ help us _ , Dean.”

“ She won’t.”

“ She  _ might _ . And we have to try. Because we’re gonna have to go through her eventually anyway and I think we’ll have a better chance of surviving it if we don’t go in guns blazing.”

“ Except Amara being alive kinda scuppers the whole ‘balance’ thing.” Dean pointed out, one step away from raking his hand through his hair from the frustration. “Even if she would go against Chuck, she won’t help us because she doesn’t wanna die. It’s that simple.”

Sam threw down his phone and levered himself off the sofa so he could stalk towards Dean, his face dark with anger, though the small space ruined the effect somewhat as he only needed to take two strides.

“ You know what, Dean? None of this is simple! None of it! We’re going to try and kill  _ God _ , you don’t get more complicated than that. We don’t know what he knows, what his limits are,  _ anything _ . I’m trying to come up with solutions to help with that and you lost the right to shoot them down without even considering them the same moment you lost the right to be pissed at Cas!”

Dean flinched in his seat at the venom in Sam’s voice. When this had escalated beyond a discussion and turned into a full-blown fight he wasn’t sure, but that seemed to be happening a lot lately.

I thought your next priority was the bunker.” Rowena said slyly, taking a sip from her to-go cup. “Seeing as that’s supposed to hold your answers about God’s weaknesses.”

“ Right,” Dean said, grabbing onto the excuse to dissolve the argument. He wasn’t usually one for backing down, but the look on Sam’s face made him think twice. He remembered his failed apology back in Baby and Cas’ abrupt departure. What if Sam left too? What if, even if they made it through the final apocalypse, Dean was still left alone? The thought scared him more than he’d ever admit, more than enough to allow Rowena to place a temporary band-aid over the ticking time-bomb that was his brother’s patience.

Sam glared at him for a beat more before scooping his phone back up and straightened with a carefully blank face. “Fine. Then first of all, we need to go back. We need to let Rowena take a look and see if there’s anything she can do. And  _ you _ need to take a look and see if there’s anything more mechanical you can do. And then, once we know how to get in, we need to know what to do about other you.”

“ Yeah, I, uh...” Dean rubbed at the back of his neck, which felt hot to the touch. He couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes. “I actually have an idea about that. But in case it doesn’t work… and I really hate to ask, man, but we’ve got one shot at this, we could really use Cas as backup.”

  
Sam’s mouth thinned into a single line for a moment. Then he glanced at his phone once more before resolve took over his features. “Cas… Cas hasn’t checked in for a couple days. I didn’t wanna tell you because I knew you’d worry. He probably just got caught up in his case and forgot, how many times have we missed check-ins when nothing was wrong?”   
  


Ice tingled along Dean’s spine. “Where is he?”

  
  
“ Colorado.”

  
  
Dean held back a curse. That was too far to do a drive-by, and Cas would be  _ pissed  _ if Dean came busting into the middle of his case. Or… more pissed than he already was. Besides, he thought to himself, ignoring the curl of unease in his gut that had nothing to do with possibly sketchy Chinese food, Sam was right. There could be a million reasons he hadn’t called yet. Cas wasn’t a robot with a programmed-in alarm to remind him to call home at a set time each day. And yet… he  _ knew _ how important it was that he stay in touch. If he was too busy to call then surely he would have sent a text? Something? It suddenly made sense why Sam had been checking his phone so much.

  
  
“ Call him in the car.” Dean said. “We’re wrapped up here anyway.”


	9. A Search... What's the Opposite of Party?

The angel hadn’t picked up. Rowena drove her own car behind the newly-stolen Dodge Charger—which already looked like it had been through an apocalypse or two, what with all the dents and scratches on its dusty surface—and she could only tell that the phone call had gone unanswered by the rather dramatic way the car had suddenly jolted forward, adding another 10mph onto the amount they were already breaking the speed limit. It was a heap of junk, and they’d found it in what she had assumed was the rough part of town. By the boys’ reasoning, that meant they were doing the owner a favour by taking it off their hands. If it was insured for theft then they could get an upgrade no problem. Rowena thought that it was unlikely a car like that was insured for _anything_ but she wasn’t going to push the point. The brothers were wound tight enough already and she had no desire to see Dean’s head explode.

It had been a close call back at the motel. She didn’t think she’d ever seen Sam that angry, and certainly not at Dean. Sure, they bickered almost constantly and argued about the best way to do things all the time, but there had been a coldness to Sam that she’d never seen before, his usual lining of fondness had been absent, lending his words a sharper edge, something that Dean had clearly picked up on. The moment had passed with her distraction but she was sure that wouldn’t be the last time that anger would raise its ugly head. There was only so much that could be buried, even by the Winchesters, and the loss of a child was one thing that would never stay down. At least in her experience.

It was a complex thing, especially when your relationship with your child was more complex than the easy and unconditional love shown in modern media. It hadn’t been that way for her and honestly she’d never wanted it. She’d never regretted pursuing her own life, even when that meant leaving her son behind. She hadn’t missed him either, but there had been moments she’d wondered about him, wondered how his life had been. Finding him again after three hundred years had been fraught with its own problems. She’d been proud that he’d risen through the ranks of Hell to become a ruler in his own right, but his resentment of her made it difficult to gain anything from the reunion. She certainly hadn’t enjoyed being ‘kept’ by him and the antagonism on both sides had kept growing.

They’d never really been a team, the way that Jack had been part of the Winchesters’ team, and it was only after Fergus was dead that she’d even thought about wanting it. It was simpler to think only of herself, to have her son and the Winchesters as allies-cum-enemies depending on the circumstances, but ultimately only being able to rely on her own wit and brain. It was a little chaotic, but it was at least more interesting that way, and she really _had_ begun to love Fergus. He had just been so like her, ambitious and cunning, selfish, yes, but also with a sense of the big picture. He loved power too, just the kind that was given by others rather than the kind you made yourself. He wanted titles and accolades, he wanted to put the work in to rule, to have demons bow to his whims. She couldn’t fault him that. The longer she spent with him the more she began to thaw. She wished she could have seen things between them mended, at least enough to be cordial, to visit each other for tea or be included in the others’ schemes without a higher incentive at work.

She let out a sigh, following the Charger into the right-hand lane as they approached a turn. It wouldn’t do to lose herself in memories and wishes; not even her magic could repair the damage done, nor could it bring her son back. There was no use wallowing in what couldn’t be changed. The part of her life with Crowley in it was over now. She still grieved him, but it was like missing a childhood pet. She missed what he represented more than who he was, which was probably not something she should admit in company but Rowena liked to be brutally honest with herself about things like that. Living in denial might work for the Winchesters, but shying away from hard truths had never been a trait she saw any value in, it only led to greater disappointment down the road.

Like now, she was guessing. She hoped they actually reached Colorado without a murder occurring in the car in front of her. She could just about make out Sam’s profile and Dean’s sharp gestures that suggested their argument from the motel was either continuing, or had been tabled in favour of another fight. Those boys always had at least seven things to fight about at any one time.

She thought about her discovery of Sam’s secret, taking one hand off the wheel to pat the bag resting against her hip, feeling the shape of the gun through the thick lining. She had planned on giving it back to Sam but hadn’t had the chance yet. Usually, a weapon like this—created by God himself and powerful enough to kill him—would be something she’d desperately want to keep hold of, but this gun made her uneasy. She wasn’t a fan of the things generally, messy and inelegant tools of death where magic could do things far more varied than just kill, but there was something about this one that felt malevolent. Perhaps it was the fact that it would kill the person aiming as well as the person being aimed at.  
  
She was no stranger to sacrifice and blood magic, a life for a life or the balance of give and take that the universe demanded in certain spells, but that was about maintaining the equilibrium. Chuck may have named this gun the Equaliser but the aura around it was unstable. It was definitely something that she hoped would never be used to take a life; she didn’t know what would happen if it was, but she was pretty sure that Chuck would have taken steps—after letting it slip that it could be used against him—to make sure that there would be more disastrous consequences than what he had told the boys. She shuddered and placed her hand back on the wheel. No, this gun was definitely _not_ something she wanted to have on her for longer than absolutely necessary.

Dean would find out, of course, it was inevitable. But Rowena was hoping it would be later rather than sooner. Sam was right. She too had seen that dangerous spark in Dean’s eye, the one that spoke of grief and a reckless desire for revenge. If he found out that they had the gun _before_ they found another way to defeat Chuck then she didn’t even think Sam would be able to stop him from stealing away with it to try and finish this thing on his own. Despite the fact that they were still living the consequences from the last time he’d done that. It really was incredible just how stupid the Winchesters could be.  
  
Not so long ago she would have shaken her head and let Dean do whatever it took to take down their common enemy, but what she’d told him the night before was true. They really were her favourite people because who else did she have? Every acquaintance she’d ever had had been for a purpose, because they’d had something she wanted or could use. She didn’t regret that, she’d come a long way from the daughter of a pig farmer after all and she was proud of the steps she’d taken to get here. She wouldn’t have been nearly as powerful or achieved nearly so much if she’d allowed herself to get bogged down in sentimentality. But with the Winchesters… especially Sam, she’d found someone who shared in her worst experiences. Who understood them on a level that only those who had been chosen and manipulated by Lucifer himself could know. It was a vulnerability he’d torn into her and she hated him all the more for it, but forming a genuine connection to Sam had helped, and bridging the gap between herself and the world had also helped, made her feel less alone.

Alone was never something she’d minded until Lucifer, and even now she considered herself fiercely independent. But she’d realised that there was a difference between having the ability to solve her own problems and having people at her back. It was subtle, but it was there. A safety net that she’d probably come to rely on more than was wise. And was probably going to be the death of her.

Still, for now, it was enough to be helping, even if ‘helping’ meant driving on her own and keeping an evil weapon in her bag. It wouldn’t be long before they’d have to stop anyway. Her car was a beauty but it did have terrible gas mileage.

They stopped just over the halfway point at a gas station with an attached diner. Before Rowena had even parked, both brothers were out the car and Sam had stormed off inside while Dean headed for the pump.

“You’re taking him the rest of the way.” Dean told her, angrily twisting off the gas cap and shoving the nozzle in. “I can’t deal with that for two more hours.”

Rowena guessed that it had been Sam to actually insist on the switch and Dean was just trying to save face. She leaned her hip against the side of the Charger. “No word, then?” she asked.

“Straight to voicemail.” Dean grunted, staring at where the gas nuzzle disappeared into the car. “Probably just turned it off or forgot to charge it or something.”

Rowena didn’t believe that, and she didn’t believe that Dean believed it either. “Right,” she said. “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation.”

“When...” Dean began, then he stopped, took a breath and tried again. “When we find him, I’m gonna hang back. It’s for the best. He doesn’t wanna see me and you and Sam can check that he’s okay.”

_Winchesters can grow after all,_ Rowena thought, biting back a smile. Not too long ago, Dean would have insisted on being the one to knock down Castiel’s door, not even pausing to consider that Castiel might not want him to. Of course, knowing how Dean and Castiel loved to misunderstand each other, this could be taken either way on Cas’ end, but she couldn’t help but be a little proud of Dean all the same. Goodness knew he had to break away from his old patterns _sometime_ if he ever wanted things to progress, which he did, of course. A blind man could see it, even if Dean himself remained oblivious.

“Alright,” she said, “if you think that’s best.”

“It is.” He finished topping up his own car and didn’t ask before he was over at hers, checking it over and selecting the correct gas nozzle. Rowena let him. For one thing, she didn’t want to get oil on her hands, and she knew that Dean would look after her car better than she ever could, and for another, he was just plain worried, and a worried Dean needed action, even if that action was filling up a couple of tanks.

She looked over the tight lines of Dean’s face, at the scowl that anyone who didn’t know him might attribute to grumpiness, the absent look to his eyes as though he was stuck in his own thoughts. _What a thing it must be,_ she thought, _to be cared for so deeply._ Not that the angel was aware, of course. Dean worked as hard to hide his feelings as Castiel did to not notice them, so the result was a mess of miscommunication and a series of emotional hairpin turns. Castiel would never see Dean this worried about him because Dean only ever _got_ this worried about him when he wasn’t around.

She thought it was a little sweet and a lot frustrating and she hoped that this burst of concern would be just the thing to get them back on track. She could only deal with a moping Winchester for so long.

Dean headed inside to pay just as Sam came out with three foil-wrapped packages. He tossed one to Dean as they passed each other and Rowena was only a little disappointed that neither of them fumbled. There was something warming about how the brothers did that. It spoke of years of trust and practise. They threw and caught sandwiches just as easily as they did weapons, car keys, beer bottles, curse boxes and any number of other things she’d seen fly through the air with no warning and sometimes not even so much as a look. She shook her head. Even when they were fighting there was a synchronicity to them, like they both knew their current feud was just temporary. Still, Sam’s face was pinched and irritated when he sidled up to her and passed her her own sub.

“Let’s go,” he said on an exhale. “No point waiting around.”

“Then you’re driving,” Rowena said, fishing out her keys and handing them over. “I want to eat my lunch.”

They pulled out of the station and Rowena watched in the wing mirror as Dean left the shop and looked after them, not making a move for his own car until he was almost out of sight completely.

“I’m surprised he’s not trying to make it a race,” she said lightly.

“He’s just putting it off,” Sam told her. “The closer we get the more he convinces himself that he’s overreacting and that Cas is gonna be pissed at him for showing up. It’s possible but...” Sam trailed off, unwrapping his sandwich with one hand and taking a bite, keeping his eyes firmly on the road. Rowena wrinkled her nose at the smell of tuna and opened her own sub hesitantly. Hers was a simple ham and cheese, and she nibbled on it. The cheese tasted like plastic but it could be worse. She rolled down her window an inch, hoping that the smell of fish wouldn’t linger once Sam had finished. Then she replayed his words.

“You don’t think he’s overreacting?” She asked, surprised.

Sam sighed heavily and Rowena noticed the crease along his forehead and the mechanical way he kept chewing even after swallowing his mouthful of sub and she realised that he was just as worried as Dean was.

“I think that Cas would’ve checked in by now if he could,” he said grimly.

The ominous statement hung in the air, thicker than the smell of tuna. For all that she thought it was strange that the angel hadn’t been in touch, she hadn’t actually been worried about him. He was an _angel_ for pete’s sake. He was strong and capable and annoyingly resourceful and could smite demons with a touch. Of course he wasn’t invincible, but even against an Alpha creature Rowena would place her bets on Castiel. He was just always so… sturdy. Even as her enemy Rowena had thought so. An irritating constant in her battles against the Winchesters. Dean’s worry she expected, but Sam’s? Sam was reasonable and practical, he knew Castiel’s penchant for occasionally dropping off the grid and he didn’t work himself up the same way as Dean. If he too was concerned… then it didn’t bode well.

They finished off their sandwiches in silence, just the gentle hum of the vehicle around them. Rowena balled up the foil and shoved it into a plastic bag at her feet and as she did so, she saw her bag, where it had slipped from her seat. She pulled it into her lap and fished out the gun.

“Here,” she said, handing it to Sam. “Take it back.”

Sam glanced at her, looking surprised at her tone, but took the gun and it half-vanished into his waistband, where he tugged his shirt out to cover it.

She stared at the lump in Sam’s shirt in distaste.

“I didn’t know you were scared of guns,” he said. There wasn’t judgement in his voice, but there was a hint of confusion as though he didn’t understand how anyone could be afraid of something that’s only purpose was to bring death.

“I’m not,” Rowena said warily. “I’m scared of _that_ gun. It’s wrong, Sam. Something like that shouldn’t exist. What does it fire if you don’t need to load it? Why the deadly recoil? I thrive on bending the rules of what should and shouldn’t be, but that thing…” she swallowed. “It’s just a feeling. Hard to explain. All I know for sure is that I don’t want anything to do with it.”

“Neither do I,” Sam said, “which is why Dean can’t know we have it.”

Rowena shook her head. “You’re going to have to tell him, and soon,” she said. “Before we try to reclaim the bunker at least. If it turns out that all you can do is distract other Dean, you’re going to have to be fast, and that means you need to know what you’re actually looking for. If Dean goes searching for the gun and can’t find it...”

“Then it’ll be a waste of what will probably be the only opportunity we get. You’re right. I know I can’t keep it from him forever, just… not yet. We’ll find Cas and get his help on this and it might not even come up until after when we have another plan. But we have to do more than distract that thing. How are we gonna figure out what young me _was_ talking about unless we can get free reign of the place again? The bunker is full of books and relics and cursed objects and weapons. How are we supposed to find the _one_ thing in there that might be able to kill God?”

“Don’t ask me.” Rowena said with a scoff, leaning back in her seat. “If I knew the spell, I’d give it to you.”

“Well, if you think of it, let me know,” Sam said, a wry twitch to his mouth. “Though I doubt it’ll be that easy.”

“You know what? Me too.”

Sam chuckled, small but not without genuine humour. Then he sobered again. “I miss Jack.”

Rowena stared at him, but he didn’t take his eyes off the road. “I can’t say that around Dean so I haven’t said it... I really miss him.”

“His power would certainly come in handy,” Rowena said, trying to make light of the sudden dark turn this conversation had taken but Sam was already shaking his head.

“I don’t care about his power. I miss him sneaking that crazy sugar cereal into the cart. I miss him asking questions about everything. I miss his smile and how hard he tried to fit in. I miss being around someone who looks to me for guidance, who trusts me to keep them safe.” He snorted, a wet, self-deprecating sound. “How selfish is that? The thing I miss most about my kid is the way he looked to me like I had all the answers and made me feel like I did.”

Rowena studied him for a moment, took in the haunted look, the deep etchings of despair. No wonder he was constantly arguing with Dean, it wasn’t though he could express his grief without Dean seeing it as blame. He’d barely had time to come to terms with losing a son before he was kicked out of his home and now his friend may or may not be in danger. The notion had caught her back in the hotel and she’d brought it up then, albeit mildly. But Sam wasn’t doing okay. He wasn’t coping or processing or grieving properly, he was just doing what he’d done with his Lucifer baggage and vehemently _not_ dealing with it.

Except in moments like this when he reached out, looking for something _like_ to cling to. And Rowena would be lying if she said she didn’t feel something about the fact that it happened around her.

“I know I’m no substitute for a son,” she said carefully. “But if it means anything, I trust you.”

Sam’s answering smile was a little sad. “Even if I end up killing you?”

Rowena sighed, the barest puff of breath that was lost in the wind whipping through the open window as they sped down the freeway. “I’ve known you a long time, Samuel. And I like to think I know you quite well. I know that you’re a good man. So, yes. When you kill me, I trust that it will be the right thing.”

“I don’t want to kill you, Rowena.” Sam’s voice was small. Rowena smiled and reached over to pat him on the arm.

“I know. If you did then I’d feel differently I think,” she said, the truth in her words giving them warmth. “And small comfort though it may be, the reason you’re trusted is because your intentions are good, always, even if you don’t always know what to do. So maybe you don’t need other people placing their trust in you to figure it out. Maybe you just need to trust yourself.”

Sam fell quiet after that, the kind of quiet that spoke of a busy mind churning over ideas. She hoped she’d said the right thing, or at least something that he could take comfort in. Advice was hardly her strong suit; it had never needed to be. Ultimatums, blackmail and threats, those she was accomplished in, but unfortunately, those would have been of no use here. So they drove the rest of the way to Cope in near silence, only cursing at a particularly angry driver who cut them off and then decided to make a rude gesture as though _they_ were the ones driving dangerously. She honestly almost hexed the man, but Sam’s laugh at whatever murderous look was on her face had been enough to soothe some of her ire.

Eventually the smooth tarmac beneath them fell away, leaving only pockmarked earth that dipped and jostled and was frankly just all-round unpleasant. Rowena muttered her complaints and rolled the window up after a particularly harsh bump kicked up just enough loose dust to be caught in the wind and sent into her face where it, of all the indignities, stuck to her lip gloss. She wiped at her mouth furiously while Sam navigated the edges of a small town, looking for any sign of a familiar car. Judging from the purse of his lips, he didn’t find it, but did find what looked like a motel—probably the only one for miles—and pulled into the lot.

“We should go ask about Cas.” Sam said, looking both anxious and relieved to finally be here. “He might still be here, or at least it might give us something to go on.”

Rowena nodded in agreement and got out of the car, taking a moment to both relish and adjust to the ability to stretch her legs once more. She followed Sam into the office, where a rather… rotund gentleman with a bulbous red nose and oily looking skin sat behind the counter, his legs propped up on a pile of what looked like old newspapers. He had a book in his lap but he glanced up when the two of them entered. His gaze lingered on her a little, and although the man was in no way attractive, she preened under the attention. It was nice to be desired.

“A room?” The man asked. His name badge identified him as Walter.

“First, I was hoping you’d be able to help us.” Sam said, pulling out his fake badge. “I’m looking for another agent, is he staying here? Agent Cyrus.”

Rowena raised an eyebrow at the alias and Sam shook his head, a small smile playing over his lips.

“Dark hair, messy, beige coat?” Walter asked. Then, at Sam’s hopeful look, shot them down. “He was here, but he missed his checkout time yesterday. I figured being a fed he just needed some more time and that he’d settle up, but I ain’t seen him. I was actually gonna go clean out his room tomorrow if he didn’t show. It being a weekend and all.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you fill up.” Sam said, managing, somehow, not to sound sarcastic. Rowena took in the chips in the desk, the cracked floor tiles and the spider currently reclining in a corner of the ceiling. There weren’t even any security cameras. Yes. She was sure this place got positively _packed_. “Can we see the room first?”

“Being his colleagues and all, I’m sure you won’t mind if I ask you to settle the bill,” Walter said, turning to grab a key from the hook behind him before crossing his arms over his chest to stare them down. “Seeing as it’s going through the agency and all.”

Sam pulled out his wallet and handed over a few bills, grimacing. They didn’t have that much emergency cash on them and their card was one they had to be careful how they used. Of course, this wasn’t a problem for _her_ , but she was waiting for the boys to either realise, or swallow their pride and ask, something that she wouldn’t hold her breath on.

Walter led them to room 12 and unlocked the door without bothering to knock. Then he shuffled away, back towards the office. Either he trusted Sam’s badge enough to figure they wouldn’t trash the place or he simply didn’t care.

“Charmer.” Rowena said, and, even though she didn’t expect an answer, she still rapped her knuckles twice on the door.

They waited for a few seconds, and Rowena hoped that Castiel would open the door with a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why he’d been out of touch. Of course, being with a Winchester, luck wasn’t with her. So Sam reached for the doorknob and twisted, stepping inside the room.

“Cas?” He called, a last-ditch hope.

The musty room remained silent.

Sam sighed heavily, his shoulders visibly bowing under the weight of yet another fear realised. And now Rowena was more than a little annoyed at the angel. He’d _better_ be in danger, or she would be having serious words about making his friends worry. Sam didn’t need the extra stress, none of them did.

“No signs of a struggle.” Sam said, already cataloguing the room; running a finger through the dust and inspecting the window- and door-frames, the lock, possible escape routes. Rowena looked around too, and though she didn’t have Sam’s eye for crime scenes, she took in the rumpled bedsheets, the lack of any personal items, and the sole cardboard box on the table. She went over to it and lifted the lid. Inside were several files, probably related to whatever case Castiel had been working on.

“Why would he leave without returning these?” she asked. “Do you know what he was after?”

“He had a theory about a wraith, but he hadn’t confirmed anything last we spoke.”

Sam looked down at the slept-in bed with a frown. “He’s been gone at least two nights,” he concluded.

“And he took everything but this.” Rowena indicated the box.

“Unless he didn’t have anything. He is an angel.”

“An angel who sleeps.”

Sam’s expression twisted. “Yeah. He didn’t tell me about that.”

“Shocker. Oh, come on,” she added at the look Sam shot her. “All you three do is keep things from each other. How are you still surprised each time?”

“Or it might not have been him,” Sam said, desperately reaching. “Or he might have found someone...”

“You think the angel is off having a sexcapade?” she asked, incredulous and a little amused. “Sam. I think we can both be _sure_ that’s not what happened.”

Sam sighed. “You’re right. I know you’re right. But if he’s sleeping then that’s bad. Like… even if he wasn’t already missing I’d be worried bad.”

“Well, the hob hasn’t been used,” Rowena said, glancing at where the streaks of industrial cleaner had been swiped over the surface. “Maybe he just needed a power nap.”

“Maybe.”

Rowena could see he wasn’t convinced. She couldn’t blame him, she wasn’t convinced either.

After a final glance around the room, Sam went to the box and upended it, spreading the files out over the table.

“If we can solve the case, we’ll find the thing, whatever it is, and hopefully we’ll find Cas and Jacob in the process.”

“His car’s gone though.” Rowena said. “It really does look like he left.”

“Someone could’ve taken it to cover their tracks. If this is a preferred hunting ground then they’re gonna want to avoid an investigation into the missing FBI agent,” Sam reasoned. “He wouldn’t leave without checking in. He wouldn’t… right?”

Rowena opened her mouth then realised she had nothing to say and closed it again. There really wasn’t a winning situation here. Either Castiel was in danger, or he’d abandoned them to fight alone. Rowena knew that Sam was hoping for the former, as was she, because the alternative was just too bleak to imagine: that Castiel, former angel of the Lord, who’d abandoned his brethren and the doctrine he’d been force-fed for millennia in favour of two humans, only to leave them now in what was the most important battle in any of their lives. The fight not just for their world, but for their souls, for their agency, the cause for which Castiel had fallen in the first place. For him to leave them to this fight spoke of a personal failure on the brothers’ part, so bad Castiel couldn’t see a way past it to work together.  
  


There was a vulnerability in Sam’s face that reminded her, again, of how close he and Castiel were. They had a quiet friendship, just as strong but not as loud and passionate as the one he had with Dean. To lose the angel’s support would be devastating, and Rowena fervently hoped that Castiel and this Jacob were just bound and gagged in a warehouse somewhere, awaiting rescue.

“Right,” she said. “We can look through these, and then maybe ask around town. Someone must have seen them and this place is small enough that strangers stand out. We’ll find them.”

Sam smiled at her gratefully. “Yeah,” he said, flipping open the first file. “We will.”

xxx

Dean arrived just as they were leaving the motel room, Sam had the box in his arms and Rowena was carrying the notebook he’d been jotting notes in.

Dean’s face was dark as he stepped out of the car, clearly the absence of Castiel’s car had his defences up immediately.

“He’s not here?”

Sam shook his head. “We’re just going to return these to the police station, see if we can do some digging there. There was an officer he mentioned, Lauren Foster. He said she was more competent than the sheriff and seemed to know everyone, so we’re hoping she kept an eye.”

Dean’s jaw twitched but he nodded and indicated they load the box into the car. “If we’re passing as feds, we can’t drive that,” he said of Rowena’s Coupe. “And you need to change. Don’t you have a suit?”

“Aye,” Rowena said. “And don’t you take that tone. I’m here to help.”

She left him to splutter after her and grabbed one of her bags from the Coupe’s trunk. She’d change in Castiel’s room.

When she returned a few minutes later, her hair bound back in a ponytail and her suit—blue, crisp and perfectly tailored—looking far better than the cheap and slightly crumpled monkey suits the brothers had been wearing all day, she found Dean scuffing the toe of his boot in the dirt while he waited. Sam’s head was visible in the car, in the rear seat, she noticed with delight, and Dean quickly ushered her in and they were off. While she’d been changing, Dean got directions from Walter and the drive wasn’t long. They pulled up in front of a building that she might have mistaken for a school if not for the sole police car in the lot.

The young man at the front desk had a thin, ratty face and a nervous smile. Rowena gave him a dazzling smile of her own and asked if they could speak to Officer Foster. The boy practically tripped over himself to comply and Dean rolled his eyes at the few seconds’ delay that caused, but a few moments later, a sensible and harried looking woman appeared and introduced herself.  
  


Sam handed over the box. “The case files our colleague borrowed.”

“Thanks. I can talk and file at the same time if y’all had something to say.” They exchanged looks before following her to a storage room, passing an office with ‘Sheriff Wyatt’ pasted on the door and inside was a man on his computer, the screen tilted towards them just enough for her to make out the screen of _Candy Crush_. Lauren unlocked the storage room, juggling the box between her hands, and she headed straight for the filing cabinets.

“About our colleague—” Dean began.

“I have to admit, I thought he’d made off with these.” Lauren interrupted, slotting a file into place before heading for the next cabinet. “I’m glad he didn’t. Would’ve got me in a lot of hot water with the sheriff and I just don’t need that right now. I’m surprised he didn’t come himself though. Seemed like the type to come and say goodbye, polite-like. Gotta say, I’ve got no clue why he called you guys down here too. Everything’s just fine. Better than, actually. Past couple days things’ve really cooled down. Last two nights, not a single domestic call. Let me tell ya, it was a weight off.”

She turned around to face them after placing the now empty box on top of one of the cabinets and folded her arms. “So, what can I help you with?”

“You say you thought Agent Cyrus had made off with the files,” said Sam, who was really probably the best one to speak, seeing as Dean looked like he was wound up so tight he was about to start up like a pneumatic drill and Rowena had no idea what to ask. “When was the last time you saw him?”

“Not since he borrowed those files really. I know we probably don’t register as important to you FBI folks but an update would have been appreciated. I thought he must’ve decided there wasn’t a case here after all. Still, I know that he and Keith Blake, that reporter he was working with? They were at Rosco’s two nights ago and they left together late. Dylan keeps an eye out for trouble and while new folks ain’t trouble I asked he keep me in the loop. I’m sure you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” Rowena put in, “So he and Keith left Rosco’s… did Dylan say where they were headed? Did they perhaps drive somewhere?”

“They ain’t in trouble are they?” Lauren asked, looking concerned now. “I thought it was strange, a fed and a reporter teaming up but Dylan said they were real friendly, like they knew each other already.”

“No, they’re not in trouble.” Dean was quick to jump in. “It’s just that Agent Cyrus missed his check-in time and we were a few towns over and were asked to check in on him.”

Rowena was pretty sure his smile was supposed to be charming, but it was a little too tight at the edges to be genuine. Lauren looked at him strangely and turned back to her and Sam. “Well, Dylan didn’t see exactly where they went, but your agent’s car was seen leaving town before sun-up that same night. I called Walter but he said Agent Cyrus never checked out so I assumed they were coming back.”

“Were both people in the car?” Sam asked quickly.

Lauren shook her head, “No idea. Like I said, it was before sun-up and leaving town ain’t exactly trouble. It was just a guy who went out for a smoke who saw the car drive off.” She frowned at them. “Should I be worried? Have we got a missing agent here?”

“We’re sure it’s just a misunderstanding,” Rowena said. “He probably called but left a message with the wrong person and forgot to charge his phone, you know how it is. But we would like to straighten this out as soon as possible. Have you seen that reporter around at all?”

“You’d be best going to talk to Dylan.” Lauren answered. “What I know comes from him anyway so you might as well skip the middle-man. Call me if you need somethin’, we don’t have much in the way of resources here but I can put out an APB or ask around town.”

“We’d appreciate it. Thank you,” Sam said. “Maybe hold off for now. Like Agent Platt said, it’s probably nothing. We don’t want to bother you if it turns out he’s just the next town over.”

Lauren narrowed her eyes in slight suspicion, but her gaze landed on Dean, who was already tensed like it was taking every bit of effort he had just to remain in the room and she decided, sensibly, not to ask questions. She gave them a few quick directions and they left back the way they’d come, ignoring the stares of other officers, and a commanding bark from the actual sheriff, calling Lauren in for a ‘briefing’, which was probably just a pompous way for him to get her to tell him what was going on, seeing as he only seemed to have a passive interest in his own precinct.

“Sounds to me like Cas solved the case and moved on.” Dean said once they were all back in the car. “No domestic calls since he left, things have been good. He must’ve ganked what needed ganking.”

“Or he scared it away from town and followed it,” Sam suggested, looking minutely more relaxed than he had walking into the station. “If he’s still on the same case and it’s leading him in circles maybe he didn’t think there was anything to update us on. And you know how he is about calling while driving.”

Dean let out a small huff of agreement, and though it was clear that neither of the brothers were going to completely unwind until they found Castiel, it was nice to see them not arguing for a change. Rowena decided to sit back and enjoy the peace while it lasted, although she did have a small bone to pick with Sam and just couldn’t hold it in all the way to Rosco’s.

“Platt?” She burst out. “Really? That was the best name you could come up with?”

“What’s wrong with Platt?” Sam asked, as though her indignation was unwarranted. “I wasn’t even thinking of a musician, it’s just a name.”

“Platt, Plant and Paige.” Rowena emphasised, rolling her eyes. “Do you hear how ridiculous that sounds?”

Sam inhaled as though to speak, then he paused, and the breath came out as a warm chuckle. Even Dean snorted in amusement.

“I guess I just didn’t think.”

“Obviously.”

“Okay, next case you can go back to being McLeod.”

“How generous of you,” she said, keeping her voice sardonic, but there was no real heat behind it. In truth, she too was feeling more hopeful. Her concern for the angel might not be as acute as the brothers’, but it was there, making her a little jittery. It was however, perfectly plausible that his case had just led him elsewhere, or that he’d solved it and was taking a break before his next one, and had missed their call by something as simple as being in the next room or accidentally leaving his phone on silent and forgetting to check it.

They pulled up at the bar and headed inside. It was busy despite the early hour. Couples and families sat in booths around large, greasy-looking pizzas and bowls of chicken nuggets. Rowena wrinkled her nose, fine dining was clearly not the goal here. There was a large space towards the back with music playing from a battered jukebox which she assumed was supposed to be a dance floor. There were very few people taking advantage however, just a sickeningly sweet elderly couple practising what looked to be a salsa and a few of children running around, bashing each other with toy lightsabers while their exasperated parents stared at their menus like they might offer a full night’s sleep alongside dessert.

Dean hailed down the bartender with a practised wave and, after serving a man who looked like he’d been drinking since noon, he came over with a smile.

“Hi, are you more of those agents?” He asked, his eyes bright with excitement. Rowena supposed a visit from a few feds must seem exciting to someone who lived in a place like this, where nothing happened until a monster came to town.

“Yeah,” Dean said, flashing his badge quickly, probably just to see the boy’s face light up. “Are you Dylan?”

“Yessir.”

“Great. Well, Officer Foster said that you might have seen our colleague a couple nights ago and we were hoping you could tell us about that.”

“Sure. Why don’t you guys grab a booth and I’ll just get Nile to cover me at the bar for a little bit. It should be fine though, it’s been really quiet the past couple days.”

As he said that, one of the lightsaber-wielding children came charging behind them, shrieking with laughter. Rowena almost stumbled over her when she turned to find a booth. Pursing her lips in disapproval, she headed for the booth furthest away and didn’t look back to see if Sam and Dean followed her. She slid into the cracked vinyl and winced when a particularly sharp piece snagged on her skirt. Sam came next, and then Dean, forcing her to shuffle around to make room so that Dylan could have a side to himself.

They weren’t waiting long. A bald man with deep wrinkles around his eyes emerged with Dylan from the door to the kitchen and situated himself behind the bar, while Dylan peeled off to join them.

He practically bounced when he threw himself into the seat. Rowena couldn’t understand his excitement, usually people tried to _avoid_ talking to the cops, and feds were a whole other step up. She honestly didn’t know when the boys had abandoned all their other aliases. They’d told her stories about cases where they posed as the forestry service, or teachers, or doctors. Constantly impersonating FBI agents seemed rather dull by comparison.

Sam had said that it was just easier. Dean had said that a fed badge opened pretty much every door that lower-level employees couldn’t break through. Rowena thought it would be quite fun to get into a character that wasn’t just her in a nice suit. Although, she gave Dylan a once-over, his old black t-shirt with the Rosco’s logo on it was hardly inspiring.

“You wanted to know about your buddy, right? Him and Keith?”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “You did see them the other night, correct?”

“Yep. And the night before. Came in, then your guy spotted Keith and went over right away. They were talking all night. Looked like they were real close and then left together. If you want my two cents, I’d say they were a little bit more than chummy, if you get my meaning.”

Rowena didn’t think it was possible for someone’s face to change so dramatically in so few seconds but Dean sprouted a blush that deepened and spread to the very tips of his ears. He stammered something unintelligible but before he could make any actual words come out, Sam stepped in to take Dylan’s attention away from Dean.

“After they left, did you see where they went?”

“First night they just went to their cars, second night they headed towards the Nook.”

“The Nook?”

“Yep,” Dylan confirmed. “Round back of one of the crop fields. If you follow the road around a ways, there’s a little nook opposite. Kind of a local make-out spot. It’s out of the way and no one ever really has the need to go down that way unless they’re going to the Nook, and on a clear night you get a really great view of the stars. It’s pretty sweet.”

“They were headed to a make-out spot?” Dean managed.

Dylan looked at him strangely. “You’re not one of them jackasses are you?”

“No, he’s just repressed,” Rowena said sweetly.

“Unimpressed.” Sam said loudly, with a cough. “He’s very professional, doesn’t like the idea of taking any personal time while working a case.”

Dean glowered at them both but seemed to realise that no denial he could make would work in his favour.

“Waste of the taxpayer’s dime,” he muttered instead, which Rowena found extremely amusing, considering she was pretty sure that neither he nor Sam had _ever_ paid taxes and they lived off fraudulent cards.

“Ahh.” Dylan said, none the wiser. “I guess. Well, anyway, that’s where they went.”

“And they haven’t been back?”

Dylan shook his head. “I heard they left town. Keith was in here pretty much every night before that, usually just had a beer and people-watched. Never caused any trouble, never ordered food either till your buddy showed up. I mean… not that I blame him,” he leaned forward conspiratorially. “Don’t tell Nile I said this but the food here is pretty nasty. I mean, it’s the only bar in town so if people want something quick and cheap then they don’t really have much choice. You ask me, I’d fire him and make this place something great but the boss doesn’t really care as long as it’s making money and he won’t spend a dime to renovate.”

“You said he ordered food?” Dean asked quickly, heading off Dylan’s dreams of taking over this dump.

Dylan looked understandably confused at the question. “Yeah, the second night. Just a couple sides from what I remember and Keith didn’t even touch his.”

“He _ate_?”

“Um… not much. Like I said, the food here is pretty gross. Why?”

“He’s, uh, usually a bit of a health freak,” Sam said with a pointed _stop talking_ look to his brother. “We’ve both worked with him before and he’s the kind of guy who has to prepare all his own meals, you know.”

“Right.” Dylan didn’t look convinced, and Rowena had to agree that Dean’s shock was a bit much. Sure, Castiel was an angel but she’d seen him inhale coffee and swipe the occasional potato chip. Then again, she thought of that rumpled bed in the motel room. If he’d gone out of his way to order food then it hadn’t been for Jacob’s benefit.

They left the bar soon after and followed Dylan’s directions, setting out on foot towards a crop field. The sun was beginning to sink behind it, adding a red sheen to the tips of the golden wheat stalks and turning the dirt path rusty. It was probably as close to beautiful as this place ever got but Rowena wouldn’t use the term herself. There wasn’t nearly enough foliage. The few trees there were sparse and brown with drought, or spiny, with only the barest hint of green. Plus, they might be out in the middle of nowhere, but there was no direction in which she could turn and not see something that had been warped by humankind. Which was strange, because she found cities beautiful. But if Dylan was to be believed, the place they were headed was supposedly the most romantic view in the whole town. Probably because there was no way to actually see the town when you got there.

“Well,” she said, fully aware that both men were deliberately slowing to match her pace and taking no small amount of pride in that. “You might be right, Samuel. Looks like the angel was having a sexcapade after all.”

“You guys, uh—” Dean said, his voice thick with an emotion she couldn’t quite identify. “You guys don’t really think that... do you?”

“What? That our dear Castiel is shtupping the other-worlder? Maybe. Goodness knows the poor man deserves to have some fun.”

“I doubt it,” Sam said, with a hard look at Rowena that she raised an eyebrow to. “From what I remember, Jacob avoided Cas from the moment he showed up. He lost his brother and sister to angels in one of their raids so he had a hell of a reason to be distrustful.”

“But the kid said—”

“That they seemed close, yeah. Maybe being out of touch with the rest of the hunter community made _any_ familiar face welcome, or maybe he’s been away from that world long enough to sort through his issues.” There was a tightness to Sam’s voice as he walked, and he wasn’t looking at Dean in a way that Rowena suspected meant that his patience—always so flighty when it came to his brother these days—was running out.

“So...”

The dam broke and Sam whirled around. “I don’t know, Dean. Maybe they are. So what? Why does it matter to you if Cas is off boning Jacob? If they _are_ and you have a problem with it, keep it to yourself. If you want even the _possibility_ of earning back his trust then you need to accept that you have never had a say in what Cas does.”

Dean blinked in the face of Sam’s instant animosity but bristled back, puffing his chest out as though he was trying to make himself look bigger than he was. Considering the size of the man he was posturing against, Rowena thought it was an unimpressive display.

“Oh, so you’re telling me that you wouldn’t be pissed that we drove all the way out here, worried about the guy, to find out that he was just too busy getting his rocks off to send a text?”

“That’s not why you asked and you know it.” Sam snapped back, a cruel lash that even Rowena could tell was below the belt. Dean deflated like he’d been punctured, stared at his brother with a look in his eyes that Rowena had never seen directed at Sam before. Fear.

Sam, for his part, shrank back down too, seeming to hear his words only as he’d spoken them and couldn’t quite believe he’d said them aloud. “Dean—”

“You know what?” Dean said, recovering instantly and pushing past his brother to keep walking alongside the crop field at a much faster pace, his voice carrying back to them in the still air. “I hope Cas is in trouble, because we’ve just wasted an entire freaking day coming to check on him. We still need to reopen the bunker, we still need to get the gun and we still need to stop Chuck, we don’t have time for detours. So Cas had better be really freaking—” his voice dropped off as he hit the corner and he stopped in place.

“Dean?” Rowena called.

Dean didn’t react straight away, but after a few seconds his head swivelled around and his wide eyes locked onto Sam’s.

“I take it back,” he said, his voice small now, but they were close enough to hear it. “Sammy, I take it back, I didn’t mean it, I—”

Sam quickened his pace too and reached the turn, and his face went very still.

“What? What is it?” Rowena asked, cursing her shorter legs. She reached them both a few seconds later, followed Sam’s eerily blank gaze and her heart sank.

“Oh dear,” was all she could think to say.

The remains of a phone, a collection of glass fragments and broken plastic were scattered in the dirt, and two long, black, ashy shadows had been burned there.

Wings.


	10. Grief is the Thing With Feathers

After Dean had realised that Sam couldn’t make this not real any more than he could, he went back to staring at the imprints in the dust of the road as though they would tell him something that made more sense than the fact that his best friend was dead. The shapes didn’t change. Huge black wings that were missing clumps of feathers in places; unhealthy looking, but they looked better than Dean remembered from the last time he’d seen the shadows of Cas’ wings. Either they had begun to heal in the past few months, or he was misremembering because the look of shame on Cas’ face as those wings were brought into view had accompanied them. They looked smaller too, laid out next to a wheat field in bumfuck nowhere, just a few yards from a spot that teenagers came to fondle at each other in the dark.

_This isn’t the kind of place that an angel should die._

The thought came unbidden and he quickly shook it off. He’d killed angels in worse places than this; in warehouses, in old, rust-gutted boats, in churches too. A dead angel was a dead angel and it didn’t matter where, but at least last time Cas died, the scenery had been nicer.

“Dean! Hey, come over here.” Sam called him where he’d been poking around in a cluster of trees.

Dean didn’t want to, he _really_ didn’t want to. Judging from Sam’s tone he hadn’t found Cas alive and well and pissed at them so he didn’t really care. He crouched down and extended his fingers to brush the very tip of one of those ashy imprints. It felt like grainy dirt and he didn’t know why he’d bothered. Maybe it would have been comforting if Dean was capable of being comforted right now. As it was he just felt scraped out and hollow. He swallowed and raised his eyes to where Sam was gesturing him over. Rowena was heading in that direction too. He watched her hair bounce with each step, catching the final rays of the day, framing her head in fire. He wondered if Sam’s little crush on her would amount to anything, if she returned those feelings, if she was capable of them. He wondered if she would understand if she saw Dean crumble into nothing, if she watched him fracture and rip out the sharp-edged pieces of himself that hurt too much to keep. He’d done it before, just not around someone who wasn’t family.

He breathed in, deep, grounding, and straightened himself up, wincing at the ominous crunching sound that came from his knees as he did so. He should probably be more careful, Cas wasn’t gonna be able to take that shit away anymore.

He trudged over to Sam, who pointed to what had clearly been a bonfire, hidden from the road by the trees. This must be the Nook; there were abandoned liquor bottles and beer cans, plucked flowers long-since curled up and skeletal brown, a couple of condom wrappers and even a few half-burned candles, wax tears frozen along their sides. Around the bonfire the grass had edged away, leaving a plain dirt buffer between it and the balanced sticks, evidence of years of use; though not all the way around, he noticed. In some sections the grass was still burnt black, curling away but not yet betrayed enough to retreat.

He looked at Sam, who nodded grimly, having come to the same conclusion. This was where they’d burned Cas’ body. They’d given him a hunter’s funeral at least. Dean was glad of that, that he hadn’t been left in the road. Though despite all the evidence staring at him in the face, Dean felt the first traitorous sparks of hope.

“So there’s no body.” he said slowly.

Sam gave him a look that would probably be a bitchface if there wasn’t so much sadness in it. “Dean—”

“Look, all we know is that this was a big bonfire and an angel died back there, right? Doesn’t mean it was Cas.”

“Don’t.” Sam said heavily, holding up a hand. “Just… don’t. What other angels are even on Earth right now, let alone in fucking Colorado? His phone is there in pieces which explains why it hasn’t been ringing out when we call. He hasn’t been seen in by anyone in town for two days and he hasn’t been back to return those files to the sheriff’s office. Cas is dead, Dean. The sooner you accept that the better.”

Dean flinched but Sam had already turned away and didn’t see. Rowena did though. He flushed at the pity on her face.

“What about his room? His _car_? Those people who said he left town?” He heard the desperation in his own voice, knowing that he was wrong, knowing that what Sam said was the truth, but it just wouldn’t turn over in his brain, like a rusted lock trying to be opened with a just as worn key.

“Jacob did this,” Sam said as he stared at where Cas had probably been laid on a stack of twigs. He sounded bitter, like he should have been expecting it. “He never got over his hatred of angels. But he knew we’d come looking, so he took the Corolla and cleared out his room and made it look like they just took off.”

“You think?” Rowena asked, coming up to stand by Sam, the top of her voluminous hair not even as tall as Sam’s shoulder. His head tilted down to look at her but his eyes didn’t land. He was clearly lost in his own head.

“Had to be him. They were the only two out here that night. Maybe they’d just finished the hunt and he didn’t need the help anymore.”

“No.” Dean said, shaking his head for emphasis, though the world didn’t stop moving when his head did. “He was human. Cas could take him, easy.”

“We’re human,” Sam shrugged, “and we’ve killed a lot. Besides, Jacob wasn’t from this world, he knows angels’ weaknesses.”

“No!” Dean insisted stubbornly. “Not Cas, he’s too good.”

“His bed was slept in, Dean!” Sam said loudly, finally turning back to face him. “He was eating and sleeping and after the cemetery it took him the whole drive home to be able to heal us. He wasn’t as powerful as he used to be. He was taken by surprise and you know as well as anyone that it only takes a second.”

Dean did know. He remembered it vividly. The flash of light of the portal, a wide-eyed look of shock, the bloodied silver tip protruding from flesh. _You hesitate, you die._ Another of John Winchester’s lessons.

It was anger that came then, a tsunami of emotion that filled in all the hollow parts that had been carved the moment he saw those wings in the dirt. He stared at the remains of the bonfire, the _pyre_ , and his nails dug half-moons into his palms, then he looked to his brother.

“We’re gonna go after him, right? Jacob. We’re gonna hunt him down?” Screw Chuck, screw the apocalypse, this called for revenge plain and simple. Dean didn’t care that Jacob was human, didn’t care what circumstances had led to his distrust. He didn’t care that technically, Jacob was one of _them_. He’d killed Cas, and he would pay.

Sam met his eyes. Dean saw none of the sympathy he usually associated with Sam, none of the kindness.

“Yes,” he said. “We are.”

Dean nodded once and then spun on his heel to make his way back the way they’d come. They had work to do. But first, he was going to take full advantage of the only bar in town.

Xxx

It was almost two am when he got the call, jolting him from sleep.

“Uh, hi, Mister agent dude? It’s Dylan, from Rosco’s? Um… I think you need to come get your partner...”

Sam cursed and hung up, throwing on a shirt and shoes and grabbing the keys to the Charger. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t been expecting the call. Dean had stopped off at the bar as they passed it and hadn’t emerged. Apparently, even the prospect of revenge couldn’t stop him from first drowning his grief. He was pissed but he understood. This was just how Dean coped with things. He hated it, but it was _Cas_.

That thought stung at his chest, his own grief yawning wide. What the hell were they gonna do now? How did they even go back to being just Sam and Dean against the world? It had always felt that way, even as their family kept growing, but he’d fallen into a support system of ‘not-Dean’ too. And he hadn’t realised just how much he’d been relying on that until the last vestige of it was stripped away. He thought of Rowena then. She was a great ally to have and he trusted her, but that trust didn’t extend to being able to dump all his problems at her feet. She might be observant, but she didn’t have the insight that Cas had had, or the motherly instinct of Mary, or even Jack’s charming guilelessness that never failed to make him feel better, if only for a moment.

She had stayed with him until just gone midnight before she retired to her own room. They hadn’t talked much but she had seemed to sense that he needed company, and she too seemed annoyed that Dean had left them to go and destroy his liver.

He threw himself into the driver’s seat of the Charger and ran a hand through his hair before starting it up. Trying to somehow reinforce his crumbling mental wall with silly string. He was angry, he was hurting, and the whole situation was made worse because he _knew_ Jacob. Not well, granted, but he knew him, and he’d never thought he’d take his resentments from that other world out of Cas. It just wasn’t _right_ . Cas had barely had any angel left in him anyway, and even near the beginning it hadn’t taken Cas long to prove that he wasn’t the typical angel, but what angels _should_ be. He’d gone quickly from blindly obedient to questioning every order, to fighting on the side of humans. That had taken a strength that Sam deeply admired, and even though the rest of angel-kind had been a pretty big disappointment to the him of ten years ago—the one he now saw as an idealistic child—Cas had come through. Even when he screwed up, he had done so with the best of intentions and sometimes that was the only thing that mattered. That’s what he’d had to tell himself anyway, after the whole… letting the Devil out thing.

Jacob was going to die for this. Sam wouldn’t usually consider himself vengeful; that was more Dean’s gig, but there were some betrayals he’d never be able to unstick. It should bother him knowing that Jacob was human, but it didn’t. All he had to do was remember Cas draping his coat around Sam’s shoulders in the cemetery, telling Sam that he was too important to risk for an experiment, his small smiles and quiet, comfortable companionship. Jacob had ripped that away, callously, cruelly, ignoring Cas’ inherent kindness and patience, his dry humour and his gentle way of nudging a person to be better because he truly believes they can be. Once they’d dealt with Chuck, or at least got a solid plan, Jacob was going to regret taking the only truly good angel left away from this world. Sure, it might take them a while to get around to it, but that was okay. Sam was more than capable of holding a grudge.

The bar was dark and quiet when he arrived, clearly past closing time, but the door was still open. Dylan looked around from where he was wiping down tables and flipping chairs to rest on them so it would be easier to mop the floor. He gave Sam a sympathetic smile and nodded towards the bar, where there was a lump of cheap suit and a haze of alcohol.

Sam strode up to his brother and pulled his wallet from his inside jacket pocket. He flipped it open and pulled out thirty dollars to leave on the bar. Hoping that was enough, he then tucked the wallet back inside Dean’s jacket and gave him a sharp poke.

“Dean.”

Dean grunted and spun in his chair to throw a punch so sloppy that Sam didn’t even have to move to avoid. Dean would have followed the momentum of it down to the floor but Sam stepped in and caught him before he could. Slinging one of Dean’s arms around his shoulders.

“Come on. Let’s get you back.”

“Sammy?”

The voice was thick and slurred.

“Yeah. Come on. Use your damn feet. Don’t make me carry you.”

Dean was a dead weight against him, throwing his own balance off a little. But he was practised at this, and it was one of those times his extra height came in handy, so he bore up better than the last time Dean had had to get _his_ drunk ass back to bed. Though that had been years ago, and following a celebration of some kind that he couldn’t remember. Somehow, Dean managed to shuffle so that his legs were actually underneath himself rather than dragging behind, stumbling his weight from foot to foot while Sam took the pressure off so they made quicker progress to the door. He took a second to wave his thanks to Dylan, who stared back, more than a little confused at seeing the supposedly rigid, professional FBI agent do his level best to drink his bar dry not an hour later.

It took some doing to get Dean into the car but years of experience (and wasn’t that a sad thought) only led to a minor bump on the head from the roof before Dean was sprawled out on the backseat. He seemed to be trying to talk but as Sam couldn’t interpret the grunts and burbles and wet snorts into English, he didn’t bother trying to hold up his end of the conversation. The stench of bad whisky made him wrinkle his nose.

It was pathetic, honestly, and a little selfish. They still had so much else going on. what if Chuck decided to show up right now? Last time Cas had died Dean had at least kept himself functional, wary as he was of Jack and what he might do. He’d still been drinking way more than was normal—normal for Dean at least—but he’d made sure never to sink so deep into the bottle that he couldn’t fight if the occasion called for it.

Sam pressed his lips together as he drove. He didn’t like to think of his brother that way. In some ways he felt let down by it. Dean had been his hero through all his young life, the parent that John never was. He’d been cool and suave and funny and fearless. Sam had wanted to be everything that Dean was, until John had deemed him old enough to start the same training, the training that demanded obedience over thought. Sam had learned, John had made sure he did, but he’d hated the process. He might have found the lore pretty interesting but the training itself turned out to be nowhere near as glamorous as Dean had made it seem. They’d spent endless hours throwing knives until they stuck, or being shaken awake at four in the morning to run laps around the motel before school, or setting up a ‘shooting range’ as far from the rest of the population they could get and firing round after round (that he’d had to make himself of course) into a tree trunk or row of cans. And Heaven help them if they complained.

The worst part had been that it made him question everything he knew about his big brother. He began judging Dean’s worship of their father as weakness, as stupidity. He’d been _wrong_ of course. Dean’s dumb act was just that, an act, because nobody had ever expected any more of him than idiot high school dropout, nobody except John, who had expected things of Dean that shouldn’t be expected of any kid. Dean’s worship, in hindsight, was understandable, and pretty damn heartbreaking.

He pulled into their spot in the motel parking lot and resigned himself to a further ten minutes coaxing Dean out of the car again. After a lot of cursing, yanking and threatening, Sam managed to hoist his brother into semi-walking and although the steps appeared to be too tricky for Dean to understand, they made it inside without too much hassle.

Sam dumped his brother on the nearest bed and went to grab him a glass of water. When he turned back around, he paused in surprise, the partition of kitchen vinyl to carpet a hard lump under his left foot. Dean was curled around the pillow. His shoulders shook with sobs, his breathing was heavy, throaty and ugly, his face was contorted, scrunched up like he was in great pain, which, Sam supposed, he was. Pity swelled in his chest. He knew how much Dean cared about Cas, of course he did, but knowing something because of how pig-headed Dean got about it, or how defensive, was different to knowing it because of how much it hurt him.

Sam sighed and walked over to sit on the bed, holding out the glass. His anger at his brother was now a distant memory. It would return, he knew, but in this moment, his brother was hurting worse than Sam had ever seen him, and all he wanted to do was help.

“Here.” He said gently, though when Dean didn’t respond he physically grabbed one of Dean’s hands, pried it from the pillow and pushed the glass into it. “Drink.”

Dean did, surprisingly. He raised himself just enough to take a few sips, then he looked at Sam, his eyes bloodshot and puffy, his expression one of pure misery.

“He’s gone,” he said, sounding lost, sounding afraid, sounding smaller that Sam had ever thought his tough, stoic, goofy big brother could sound. “He’s really gone isn’t he?”

“Yeah.”

Dean nodded, then sniffed, still staring as Sam with wide, pain-filled, hopeless eyes. “I can’t make it right. He died hating me, and now I can’t fix it. I can’t tell him… I can’t ever tell him...”

He pitched forward with the force of his next sob, spilling some of the water onto his own hands, his body collapsing into itself like he was trying to disappear. Sam rescued the glass and reached over to place it on the nightstand before contemplating what his brother had been reduced to. If he was being honest with himself he didn’t really know what to do. He’d seen Dean scared, seen him upset, seen him drunk and grieving more times that he could count, but this… this Dean wasn’t trying to close off his pain, he wasn’t trying to shake it off and act like he was okay, that he didn’t need Sam’s help, no matter how obviously he was lying. This was a kind of vulnerability that Dean hadn’t let Sam see since they were kids. Sam had a couple of hazy memories of waking up in the middle of the night to quiet weeping next to him. Caught red-eyed and too upset to pretend, Dean would hold his arms out desperately and Sam would snuggle up to him. Sometimes they’d talk, most times they wouldn’t. But Dean would hold onto him for the rest of the night, as though he were afraid to let go.

Sam hadn’t thought about that for a long time. Decades. But now he figured his brother could use that same kind of comfort.

“Come here,” he said, gathering Dean up as though _he_ were the younger brother and pulling him practically into his lap. Dean buried his face into Sam’s shoulder and cried all the harder, a damp patch quickly forming on his shirt. Sam hushed him gently and began to rock, the way that Dean did for him when he was little and couldn’t sleep because he was scared of monsters. “It’s gonna be okay. You’ve still got me. And I’ve still got you. We’ll be okay.”

“You hate me too,” came Dean’s muffled reply. “Can’t fix that either.”

Sam felt tears begin to well in his own eyes. “I don’t hate you,” he mumbled. “I’m mad right now but I could never hate you, Dean.”

“But Cas did, didn’t he? I made him hate me ’cause I screwed everything up with Jack. And he wouldn’t let me say sorry and now he’s dead and he didn’t know…” Dean pulled away from his shoulder then, his face shining with tears. He stared at Sam as though he’d just realised something important and hard.

“I think I loved him Sammy.”

Startled, Sam blinked and he felt his eyebrows crease for a moment. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t known, at least on some level. He had a betting pool going with Jody and the girls after all, and the signs were all there. He thought again of the way that Dean had dragged him out of his burning apartment while he fought, screaming Jess’ name, and how he in turn had had to hold Dean back from going to Cas, forcing him through the portal and back to their world. There were a thousand smaller moments too, the staring, the way Dean’s eyes always slid over to Cas in a room, even when neither was speaking. How they bickered with an undercurrent of _something_ that didn’t always fit with the tension of the moment.

So while he wasn’t exactly shocked by the idea, he was floored that Dean was _admitting_ it. He ran a hand over his stubbled chin and sighed.

“Yeah,” he said. “I think you did too.”

Dean fell back into him and Sam rubbed at his back and whispered soothing nonsense while his brother poured the depths of his grief into his shoulder. Sam struggled to hold back his own tears.

He didn’t know how long they stayed like that, but eventually Dean’s breathing slowed from sobs to sleep and Sam carefully extracted himself, laying Dean down onto the clean side of the pillow and, after stretching out the stiffness in his legs, he pulled off Dean’s boots and tossed a blanket over him before readying himself for bed.

How was he going to do this? Was Dean going to be as broken as he’d been the last time? All his faith stripped away, his motivation to do what needed to be done shattered? He’d fucked it up then, offering Dean band-aids for the gaping wound. Nothing he’d done had helped. It was strange, despite the fact that Dean dubbed him ‘the soft one’, he didn’t have any of the caring instinct that was bone-deep in his brother. Sam never knew how to comfort people in pain. He guessed and sometimes he was right, but it was trial and error for him. Dean just _knew._ He knew when people needed to be pushed, when they needed to be soothed, when they needed a home-cooked meal. Dean could _always_ make Sam feel better. He’d spent his life manoeuvring around his whims and trauma and it was only just now hitting Sam that he had no idea how to do the same. He’d never needed to, his mere presence had always been enough. What did he do now that it wasn’t?

Xxx

  
Dean woke up with a massive headache and a tacky-tasting mouth. Gross. He groaned and rolled over, wanting nothing more than to burrow back into sleep and forgetfulness.

“There’s water on the table if you wanna get the taste of ass out of your mouth.”

Dean swatted at the air against the too-loud voice and peeled his eyes open, wincing as the light pierced his retinas. He blinked a few times. Sam was sipping coffee at the table, his eyes on his phone. He swung his head around (immediately regretting the speed of his action when the room didn’t stop moving when his head did) and there was the nightstand with the glass of water. It glimmered in the sunlight that managed to peek in through a small gap in the heavy brown curtains, sparkling with the promise of relief. He reached for it, missed twice, and finally his hand got a grip on the cool glass. It was a little wet, as though it had only recently been put there, even though Dean vaguely remembered Sam forcing it into his hand the night before. He must have replaced it this morning. Sam was a good brother.

Of course, thinking of the night before brought back other snatches of memory that he would rather stayed buried deep in his subconscious. He remembered the strange looks he got from the kid at the bar, who seemed hesitant to serve him. He remembered ignoring a woman who tried to talk to him, not even looking over at her when she spoke. He remembered feeling a despair so powerful that it seemed to devour all that he had ever been. He remembered crying in front of Sam.

He took the water slowly, allowing the coolness to soothe his raw throat as well as giving him time to work through his humiliation. When he was done he pressed the cold glass to his cheeks, his forehead and the back of his neck. It helped, a little. So did the scent of coffee, though the thought of actually drinking any made his stomach rebel, the smell was pleasant to indulge in. He made sure Sam was still absorbed in his phone before attempting to stand. Mercifully, the room didn’t spin _too_ badly, so he wobbled his way over to the free chair and kept his hand tight on the back of it to give him a steadier reference of where to sit.

“You reek,” Sam said by way of a greeting, still not looking up from his phone, though he nudged a small paper bag towards him.

Dean grabbed it and eagerly ripped it open. It wasn’t bacon, but honestly a plain bagel looked pretty good to his empty (and still sensitive) stomach. He tore a piece off and worried it with his fingers before popping it in his mouth and chewing slowly. It was good, the way that bread was _always_ good after a night of binging. Soaking up the alcohol or whatever.

“Thanks,” he said, and he barely recognised the croak that came out of him. He cleared his throat, ate another piece of bagel and tried again. “So, um… about last night..”

Sam finally tore his eyes away from his phone to meet his eyes. His face was carefully blank in the kind of way that immediately sent anxiety pinging through his brain.

“What do you remember?” he asked.

“Not much,” Dean admitted. “I know I got a bit, um… chick-flick for a bit there, so thanks for throwing me some Kleenex or whatever.”

_Thanks for letting me cry on your shoulder like a teenage girl with a broken heart._ Because he had to remember _that_ part of course, even though most everything else was mercifully blank.

“I’m just glad you used it for your face.” Sam shot back.

_You’re welcome._

Dean smiled hesitantly, glad that he didn’t seem to have done any irreparable damage with whatever he’d said. Sam’s returned smile wasn’t exactly _warm_ , but it at least looked genuine.

“Have you found anything on Jacob?” he asked. The name of Cas’ murderer stuck in his throat and he took another bite of the bagel to cover it. He didn’t remember Jacob, he was just one of the many faceless Apocalypse World survivors that had crowded up his home after Michael had left him the first time. Sam said he hadn’t even stuck around, apparently distrustful of everyone since the angel raid that had killed his family. Dean could understand that, but Cas wasn’t even from that world, let alone in league with those assholes. He was _Cas_. Grumpy, sardonic, dry-humoured Cas, who never seemed to get tired of humanity no matter how many times it had let him down, who got confused by the logic of fantasy shows but binged reality TV like it was the freaking gospel. Cas with the kind eyes and rare, gummy smile. His Cas.

He rubbed his knuckles hard into his eyes and wished Sam had woken him up with bourbon rather than water. He wanted to chase this spiral all the way to the bottom and keep on digging. His Cas had died hating him, his Cas had never wanted to be his anyway. His Cas had hated him so much that he’d preferred to drive all the way out here to fucking Cope, Colorado than hear him say he was sorry.

“No,” Sam said, his voice as careful as his expression. “We have to focus on the bunker first, Dean. Once we have all our resources back and a better idea of what our next step is, then we can deal with Jacob. Until then… I hate it but we can’t just go off chasing this guy. What if Chuck sends something else our way? Jacob’s only really a danger to angels and… and Cas was the last good one left.”

Dean was so stunned he dropped the rest of his bagel. “So you wanna just let him go?” he said, incredulous.

“That’s not what I said. I said—”

“You said that you wanna wait until after we’re back in the bunker. But that’s just code for saying that you wanna wait until we’ve dealt with Chuck because we both know the second we get back in there we need to get the gun before he can lock us out again, and from that point on there’s probably gonna be a countdown clock over our heads to track him down and finish this thing. How long will that take, Sam? Weeks? Months? How many countries away could Jacob get before it’s convenient for you to go after him?”

“What, you think God’s just gonna _pause_ the apocalypse for our revenge side-quest?” Sam snapped back. “We’ll find Jacob wherever he goes, Dean. _After_ the world is safe.”

“And if we don’t make it?”

“Then Jacob dies anyway, along with _everyone_ else.”

“So you just don’t care!”

Sam slammed his phone down onto the table with a sharp _thunk_. His eyes were fire. “That’s not what I said and you know it’s not true.”

Dean paused for a moment but conceded with a nod. Of course Sam cared. He just had his priorities wrong, that was all.

“Okay, so—”

“Dean, do you really think that Cas would want us to abandon the fight against _God_ so we can go murder the human asshole who killed him? It won’t bring him back and it won’t help the world. It can wait. I want to find Jacob too, but the best way that we can avenge Cas is to stop God and avenge Jack. That’s the whole reason he was out here in the first place, to help us do that.”

Dean said nothing to that, though a retort burned the back of his throat, and from the way Sam was looking at him, he was daring him to say it. That the whole reason Cas had been out here wasn’t to help at all, it was to get away from Dean.

He looked away first.

“Fine,” he said, feeling a part of him shrivel up and die as he let go of hope that tracking Jacob down would assuage his grief, his guilt. “The bunker it is. If we figure out a way in then I can probably distract that… other me in there long enough that you can grab the gun, and then we’ll need to get out _fast_. I thought Cas could help. I don’t think an angel blade would kill it, but… he’s dealt with it before, right? He saved me from it last time.”

That came out far more childishly than he’d meant and he quickly shook himself, but Sam looked too lost in his own thoughts to notice.

“If you’re right and you can only delay it then we need to know for sure what I’m going in to find, because it’s not the gun.”

“How do you know?” Dean all but yelled, suddenly furious, though the loud noise did nothing to help his hangover. “That gun is the most powerful weapon we’ve ever come across and we _know_ that it can hurt Chuck, but you never even considered that the answer could be that easy. What makes you so damn sure?”

“Because it’s right here!” Sam pulled a gun from under his shirt and smacked it down next to his phone. “I had it on me before we left the bunker and Chuck was definitely watching when he sent our evil twins in. He knew I had it and his goal was still to drive us out. If he was worried about the gun he would have found another way to get it away from us by now.”

It took a while for Sam’s words to filter through to his brain. He had eyes only for the gun, the way it sat there innocently on the table. So much power contained in what looked like a bunch of ordinary metal and mechanics. If he had had the presence of mind to turn this gun on Chuck when he arrived in the cemetery then they wouldn’t be facing the apocalypse now. Jack would be alive, _Cas_ would be alive. They’d be back at the bunker with Sam to plan a ‘sorry about Dean but we saved the world and have our free will back’ party.

But then he thought about Sam’s angry words back over breakfast their last day at home.

_Dying isn’t an apology._

He didn’t know when those words had wormed their way to stick in his brain but they kept coming back to him. No matter what he’d done in that graveyard, his family would have ended up hating him, because it wasn’t about the graveyard, not really. It was the days leading up to it. The weeks of failing to process his grief over Mary, his insistence on holding on to his rage, despite Sam’s attempts to talk, despite Cas’ earnest pleas. He had been incapable of thinking of anything but revenge, and going out in a blaze of glory, even killing God, wouldn’t have changed any of that. Grand gestures were easy. Sacrificing your life for those you love is easy, it’s not even a decision. It’s all Dean has ever done. But with Cas being gone, everything between them that was broken would remain broken forever.

Maybe Sam had been right to hide the gun from him. Even now it seemed to call to him, whispering the good it could do. It promised a way out, safety for Sam and an end to his fight. But somehow it didn’t feel like enough. It wouldn’t bring Cas back, and it wouldn’t fix the things that were broken between him and Sam either. Only he could do that.

He pulled his gaze up to meet his brother’s. Sam was staring down at him, defiant, seemingly braced for an argument, to defend himself, and Dean found he just didn’t have the energy.

“Okay,” he said. “So if it’s not the gun, what is it?”

Sam looked taken-aback for a moment but quickly recovered himself. “I dunno.” He admitted. “A book maybe?”

Dean snorted, “Nerd. You always think it’s a book.”

Sam’s mouth twitched in the beginnings of a grin. “It almost always is.”

“Can you think of anything to help narrow it down? ’Cause, man, I’m all for getting the bunker back permanently but I don’t know how long I can hold that thing off. I might be able to get it locked in the dungeon but...” he shrugged, trying to keep his face nonchalant even as his guts twisted at the thought of facing that creature again, and what he would have to do to distract it.

Sam’s brow furrowed in thought. “Well… what were you looking through when the alarm went off? Maybe he thought you were getting close to something? You were in the library that day, right?”

“Yeah, but when the lights went wild I was washing up. I doubt Chuck cares too much about whether or not I get my chores done.”

Sam sent him a quick bitchface, but there was no heat behind it. That was rare for an expression from Sam these days and Dean treasured it. So he decided to answer the question Sam had actually asked.

“I was just comparing different versions of the Bible,” he said. “But kicking us out the bunker wouldn’t stop us from doing that. I mean, there’s a King James in every motel room,” he gestured to the nightstand, “and the internet is a thing. Pretty sure every religious text ever written is on there if you dive deep enough.”

“Yeah,” Sam said with a sigh. “Then it could be anything. Maybe Rowena has a spell that can… I dunno, sense the divine or something?”

“Then shouldn’t we figure that out before we go in?”

Sam grimaced. “It’s a bit of a catch twenty-two, right? We shouldn’t go in unless we know what we’re looking for, but we can’t know what we’re looking for until we go in. I think we just have to do it.”

“You don’t even know my plan for dealing with my Hell-self.” Dean pointed out. “For the record, it sucks.”

“I trust you.”

Sam’s smile had turned warmer again, and it thawed something inside Dean that he hadn’t known was frozen over. Maybe things between them weren’t completely broken after all. Maybe he could still fix this.

“Thanks,” he said, keeping his voice light. “You too, you know. You’re right, we do need to at least try for the bunker, even without Cas...” he trailed off, finding himself unable to continue.

Another snatch of memory from the previous night came back to him then. Sam’s voice, brittle and sad.

“ _It’s gonna be okay. You’ve still got me. And I’ve still got you. We’ll be okay.”_

A decade ago, that was all Dean had ever needed to hear. His brother safe and by his side was everything he’d thought he could ever want, the most he’d thought he could ask for. He felt a pang as he looked at Sam now, his hazel eyes looking almost bruised with the purple shadows under them, his hair curling a little at the ends from his morning shower. He looked as relaxed as one could considering what they still faced and grief weighing heavy. It should be enough, he thought. He hated that it wasn’t.

He wondered if there would just be a Cas-shaped hole in his life forever now, merging with all the other gaps where people should be. He quickly dispelled that thought. No. Cas’ loss stood on its own. How could it not? Cas hadn’t become bound to them by blood or circumstance, he had chosen them. Even when they let him down, even when he’d been misguided or manipulated or straight up reprogrammed, he had always found a way to choose them. And that loyalty had in turn given Dean something to believe in, a faith that he’d lost when he was four years old.

Something squeezed painfully in his chest. Honour. That was the only word that came to mind. It had been an honour to stand at Cas’ side, to be deemed worthy by a being so _good_.

Dean wanted to cry all over again, but, lacking the excuse of being drunk, looked away instead, blinking hard.

“I should, um… go shower,” he said, awkwardly standing. He avoided Sam’s gaze as he headed for the bathroom, but he could still feel the sympathy being directed at his retreating back.

When he emerged twenty minutes later in clean clothes with freshly brushed teeth and his head at least a little calmer, he found Rowena in his vacated seat, sipping from a mug, while Sam was apparently quizzing her on any spells she might know that could help detect divine energy or whatever the crap.

“Nothing very powerful, but there are a few detection spells that might help. They’re simple to cast but even the most complex one only has a range of maybe ten feet. You’d still have to comb through the bunker and the results would probably pick up on a lot of residual energy from when he was staying with you. Everything he touched probably has traces of divinity.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you saw his search history.” Dean quipped, going to the sink to refill his water glass. He’d prefer coffee, of course, but the throb at his temples said that actual hydration was what he needed, and besides, drinking coffee with a mouth tasting of mint was never a pleasant experience, no matter what those yuppies in fancy coffee shops tried to sell him (though, okay, they had a point about pumpkin spice, not that he would _ever_ let Sam know that).

Rowena snorted. “I’m surprised you’re vertical,” she said scathingly. “Those walls are thin, deary, I got that two am wake up call as well, you know. Because what we _all_ need right now is less sleep!”

Dean scowled at her, but before he could snap back, Sam intervened.

“Don’t, Row.”

She blinked at him, looking surprised, either by the subtle admonishment or the nickname Dean couldn’t tell. Either way, he was grateful when she said nothing and simply went back to her tea.

Dean drank his water over by the sink, taking the time to just stare out the window. There wasn’t much of a view. The edge of a crop field, a bunch of dehydrated shrubs and a lot of red dust. There were only two houses in view, their back yards taking up large expanses of the nothing that comprised this town. Cas had died for this place, he thought bitterly. This crappy little backwater with a sheriff who didn’t care about six corpses and a missing fed and a bar that didn’t care if its menu came with a side of food poisoning. This town that was only now safe because of an angel who’d been betrayed once too often.

His musing was cut off when a phone began to ring. Looking over, he saw Sam jump at the sound before digging in his pocket.

“Hello?” A pause. Then, warmer, “Hi Jody, what’s up? You got another case file for me?”

Dean didn’t even have time to call out his own greeting before Sam’s face turned ashen and he slumped in his chair like all his muscles had turned liquid. He exchanged a concerned look with Rowena as he abandoned the water and hurried over. What had happened now? Something with Donna? Patience? _Claire_? Panic surged into him as he fell to his knees before Sam, trying to see his expression.

“You’re sure?” Sam asked, his voice tentative. He held up a hand to Dean and Rowena and turned away from them. “You’re really sure?”

Another pause while Jody apparently confirmed because Sam nodded too, and let out a breath that honestly could have meant anything. Dean could only kneel there, trying not to snatch the phone out of Sam’s hand and demand to know what was going on.

“Right. Yeah. No, we can leave now, meet at the bunker...” he checked his watch, “maybe by two? Right. No, that’s okay. Thanks, Jody. Okay. You too. Bye.”

“What happened?” Dean asked immediately. “Is Jody okay?”

“Yeah.” Sam said, still pale, then his face broke into a grin so bright it was almost blinding. “She just got a message from Cas. He’s alive.”


	11. Reunions and Revelations

Cas pinched the bridge of his nose as he waited for the Winchesters to arrive, leaning against the door of the Corolla he’d taken from the bunker when he’d left, not even a week previously. His attempt to separate himself had been a failure apparently. He’d had a lot of time on his drive back from Nebraska to contemplate that. His first setback and he’d gone running back to the Winchesters’ last known address, unable to call them, both because his phone had been broken in the fight with Ja— _Kethian_ —and for the more frustrating reason that he hadn’t actually memorised the number of Sam’s new phone. He’d had to beg use of the office phone of the motel in Nebraska to get a message through to Jody that she could pass on. Although they’d never actually met face to face, he sometimes checked in with her to get updates on Claire as Claire herself wasn’t always forthcoming, so her number at least was committed to memory. He’d had to leave her a voicemail though, and apparently she had taken a while to check her messages because he’d arrived back in Lebanon the previous evening and there was still no sign of them.

Every so often he glanced towards the door of the bunker, wondering what was trapped in there that the brothers hadn’t wanted to talk about in front of Rowena. He couldn’t sense anything, though after what had happened with Kethian that was hardly surprising. He could barely see the faces of his own kind anymore, and he had to squint to even see the warding that had used to be so clearly visible to him.

He sighed, replaying the moment that Kethian had faced him head on. Jacob apparently had been a vessel since before leaving his original world. Kethian had taken possession of him by promising to spare his siblings if he did so, then immediately using Jacob’s hands to kill them himself. Kethian had explained this to him, the way that things often did during a fight they were certain they would win. Gloating, despite the fact that he was a cupid and Castiel still had all the battle knowledge of a seraph. 

Kethian had chosen to pass his time tormenting a town by forcing or warping love matches. This had made people more sensitive to rejection, more impulsive, even causing hallucinations in Leslie Phelps’ case; a vision of his deceased wife terrifying him into a heart attack and subsequent crash. Kethian had been so _gleeful_ describing it, each affair he had orchestrated in the bar, every marriage he had broken, every life ruined had punctuated a slash with his angel blade until Cas had finally scored his own, fatal hit. He may not have a full angel’s strength but he was still more than human, and he knew first hand what humans could do.

He’d burned the body and cleared out of Cope as quickly as he could after that. He could do nothing for the affected townsfolk, much as he hated to admit it. He could only hope Kethian had been wielding more influence rather than using his bow, so some of the infatuations and volatility of those targeted would fade with time. Unfortunately, he had underestimated his need for sleep and had only made it a couple hours before admitting defeat and stopping for the night. He had also had to make a stop for food the next morning, eating a full meal of scrambled eggs and toast and, even worse, had also had to use the restroom.

The fight with Kethian had sapped a lot of his dwindling energy and he’d had to expend some of his grace to heal a few dangerous wounds, though he’d left some of the smaller scratches and gashes and he idly wondered if they would scar. He had also forgotten how irritating a skinned palm could be, a constant dull sting that had him clenching his fist regularly to try and dispel the sensation. It was concerning that he could feel the pain so keenly. It felt like there was only the thinnest membrane still separating him from humanity. How many more healings would he be able to perform before the transformation was complete? Was his new weakness Chuck’s influence or something else entirely? He wasn’t sure which possibility unnerved him more.

Without a phone he’d known that it would only been a matter of time before Sam realised he hadn’t checked in, so he had thought the easiest option would be to go straight to the address Sam had last given him. By the time he got there however, they’d already moved on.

He pressed a hand to the back of his neck and rolled his head around until it popped, massaging at a knot of tension that had appeared over the course of the night. He had slept in the back of the Corolla, cramped and fitful, but he hadn’t wanted to get a motel in town and risk missing the brothers’ return.

He wasn’t sure that he’d accomplished what he’d been looking for when he left. His grief for Jack was no less sharp, and he had by no means proven his own independence. He hadn’t even solved the case in the end, Kethian had just been impatient and revealed himself, a far cry from the meticulous way he’d seen the Winchesters unravel puzzles leading to the offending creature. Perhaps, despite his millennia of strategy experience and knowledge of war, he was destined to be the lap dog all angels, demons and everything in between had accused him of being since allying himself with the Winchesters.

He didn’t _want_ to be that, of course. He wanted to be their equal, and he had wanted to prove it by solving a case and contributing valuable research. But he had done neither. And he had left a town still reeling from the consequences Kethian had sown. Pregnancies of those not ready to be parents, divorces, poor marriages, or strong marriages and relationships put in jeopardy by affairs, he couldn’t fix any of those. They would have to be dealt with by the people involved, however they thought best. He could not reverse the influenced decisions people made.

Just as, he supposed, he could not reverse the influenced decision _Dean_ had made when he had decided that Jack was too dangerous to exist. His hand clenched over his skinned palm again, stretching and pulling at the tightened skin, probably cracking open the scabs a little.

Perhaps he had been unfair. Dean Winchester was an incredibly strong human being, but he was still a human being after all. He had succumbed to curses before, to venoms and mundane drugs, why should Castiel expect him to be able to resist the will of the Almighty? Chuck had orchestrated probably every major event of the Winchesters’ lives to play out his story, and this had been his big ending. He had carefully cultivated the wounds that Mary left behind when Dean was a child, the ones he had never been able to fully heal from, and Chuck had exploited that to turn him against his son.

In the end though, he had underestimated Dean’s inherent kindness. Dean had thrown down the gun and been in the process of offering his hand to Jack when Chuck had stepped in with his threats, further solidifying how Dean had been played the entire time. He supposed it wasn’t surprising. For all Chuck fancied himself a writer, he really didn’t seem to understand the Winchesters at all. He seemed to have them penned as caricatures of themselves. Cas suspected that was why he found them so fascinating, because they were still able to surprise him, despite his influence on their stories, their lives.

Seeing over the past few days just how devastating the effects of direct manipulation could be, Cas thought that perhaps his anger had been misplaced. If he was being honest with himself, a lot of it was misdirected disappointment. He felt let down that Dean hadn’t listened to him or Sam, that he hadn’t been able to shrug off God’s influence as easily as he seemed to shrug off every other plan set for him. But his own expectations weren’t Dean’s fault, just as the ultimate result of the exchange in the cemetery wasn’t Dean’s fault. The blame lay squarely on Chuck. When faced with Jack on his knees, Dean had done the right thing. That mattered, it had to, as did the fact that he had been sorry about the rest. Cas thought that maybe he was ready to hear that apology now, and he might even be ready to accept it. 

As that realisation hit him, the faint sound of an engine registered on the edges of his hearing and he straightened up, taking his weight off the car, a mixture of anticipation and fear rising to his throat. He was suddenly hyper aware of his ripped and lightly bloodied shirt, his dust-stained coat, the small red lines on his face he’d seen in the rear-view mirror that marked him as no longer invulnerable. An irrational part of him worried what the Winchesters would see when they rounded the final bend in the road, a friend, or a liability?

A dirty, dented blue car slowly emerged from the trees, with a smaller, much shinier red car behind it. It was another few seconds before they reached the large clearing proper but it felt like at least an hour. Cas tried not to fidget, not an urge he’d really had much before, as he watched the cars approach. The blue one stopped directly in front of him and he saw two very familiar silhouettes in the front seats, though he was prevented from making out the details by the fact that the sun was shining directly into his face, making him squint. The passenger side door opened first, even before he’d heard the car’s handbrake click into place, and the taller of the two figures unfolded himself from the car.

“Cas!” Sam said, taking a few strides forward to clap him tightly on the arm, before pulling him in for a hug; his face was sunny, though there were still lines of grief by his eyes that Cas supposed were echoed by his own. “I’m so glad you’re okay, man. We went to Cope, found the wing shadows and assumed the worst. Good thinking, calling Jody.”

There was a slight crack in his voice and Cas returned the hug gratefully, feeling something in his chest loosen. He had missed his friends.

“I’m sorry I worried you,” he said quietly. “I’m afraid I didn’t find anything useful.”

“That’s okay,” Sam said, drawing back to smile at him, though he kept a hand on Cas’ shoulder. “We did. We’ve got quite a bit to catch you up on actually, and I wanna hear about what happened to you, and to Jacob. I assume he was an angel?”

Cas nodded. “Kethian, a cupid. This world’s version died some time ago but this one took Jacob as a vessel before they came to this world. I can only assume that was why he chose Keith as an alias, it sounded similar.”

“Wow,” Sam said. “Yeah, I’m definitely gonna need the full story on that.”

“Maybe later, when we’ve all had a chance to clean up,” came a lilting voice from behind Sam, who let go of Cas’ shoulder and stepped to the side, revealing Rowena, her red hair gleaming in the sunlight, though her smile was a little frosty as she looked him up and down. “You had us worried, Fish. Looks like you’ve been in a wee tussle. No spare shirt, I’m guessing.”

“Funnily enough, shopping isn’t _my_ priority.” He said pointedly, remembering Sam’s half-hearted lamenting about having to wait in a parking lot while Rowena tried on dresses. “And I don’t like that nickname.”

Her smile warmed. “Which is precisely why it’s sticking.”

He rolled his eyes. He trusted Rowena about as far as he could throw her, pretty far as long as he still had the ability to smite her without trouble, but the minute he became compromised he felt it was only smart to shorten the leash. He wasn’t expecting a betrayal this time though. In fact, he was as sure as he could be that she was genuine. She had no love for Chuck either and when her goals aligned with the Winchesters she had proven surprisingly dedicated, and he knew that Sam in particular had grown close to her.

There was the creak of another car door opening—the _wrong_ creak of course, this blue car was a far cry from the Impala, those sounds that were so familiar they had become synonymous with the Winchesters in his mind—and Cas turned, stomach churning now that there was only one reunion left, and faced Dean.

He was paler than usual and his jaw looked like it was locked in place. His gaze snagged on Cas’ bloody shirt for a too-long moment before meeting his eyes, an apology screaming out at him.

_I’m sorry,_ he heard in his mind and he flinched at the unexpected sound, a prayer. He hadn’t been sure he could still hear them. _I’m so sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so freaking sorry, Cas. I was an asshole and I fucked up, I fucked up so bad. I’m so sorry._

“I forgive you.” Cas said aloud, because he did, of course he did. He loved this man beyond reason, and he was tired of grieving his son alone.

Dean’s face relaxed a little into something more hopeful and he moved forward, his hand raising to brush a thumb along one of the scratches on Cas’ face before he glanced towards the others and dropped it again. Cas’ skin tingled where it had been touched. Then, he felt himself being jerked forward by the shoulder and Dean’s arms were around him and Dean’s head was pressed into his neck and his arms encircled Dean and for a few, precious seconds, the world stopped screaming and everything was calm and warm and safe.

“I thought you were dead,” Dean mumbled into his coat, and Cas could feel the pull of fabric against his chest as Dean balled his fists into the back. “I can’t lose you, Cas. Not you. I can’t.”

“I’m here.” Cas whispered back. Emotions swelled inside him at Dean’s quiet confession. He had expected the usual gruffness, a quick hug, a cleared throat. Perfunctory and familiar. He flicked his eyes over to Sam and Rowena, a little confused. Sam was watching them with a gentle smile on his face that only grew when he caught Cas looking at him. Rowena was inspecting her nails.

After a few more too-short moments, Dean loosened his hold and drew back, though he seemed suddenly incapable of meeting anyone’s eyes, staring resolutely at the ground in front of Sam as he turned towards the others.

Right,” he said, and now the gruffness worked its way back into his tone, though it sounded a little strained. “Let’s break open this bitch.”

Xxx

Sam and Rowena inspected the wards and possible mechanical issues around the bunker’s perimeter while Dean shared his plan with Cas about what he was going to do once they were inside. Cas could say with absolute certainty that he did not like this plan, but agreed that they had little in the way of choice. He was fairly sure that an angel blade would dispatch the creature, but if they tried it and failed, Dean’s plan would become irrelevant, so he was allocated as the backup instead, with Dean taking point on direct contact.

Even with a healthy dislike of the plan, Cas couldn’t help but admire the bravery with which Dean was facing it. He showed hardly any visible signs of being perturbed by what he would have to do, although Cas knew that he must be. They sat together on the hood of the blue car, watching as Rowena pointed at something above the main door and Sam nodded along to whatever she was saying.

“Sammy’s got a crush,” Dean said conspiratorially, leaning towards him so that their shoulders bumped.

Cas looked over at him in surprise, “On Rowena? You think so?”

“Oh, I know so. I raised that kid, I know what a crush looks like on him.”

Cas turned back towards the other two. They looked funny together, the height difference all the more pronounced when they stood side by side, one shockingly vibrant, the other a variety of earthy tones. He noted the way Sam was angled towards Rowena, even when he wasn’t looking at her, and the way that when she threw back her head and laughed, Sam looked pleased too.

“Look at him,” Dean said, shaking his head fondly. “If he had a tail he’d be wagging it. What a nerd.”

“Do you approve?”

“Not even a little,” Dean answered, though the small smile playing at the corner of his mouth said that he didn’t mind too much. “I dunno, man. If she were any kind of serious maybe I could get behind it, whatever makes him happy, you know? It’s kinda sweet for now, but I dunno what happens if they go beyond flirting. Could get messy.”

“I highly doubt Sam’s planning a life of suburbia with the three-hundred-year-old witch.” Cas said dryly. “But I get your point. If the past few days have taught me anything it’s that relationships are complicated, even without a cupid exacerbating things.”

“Damn right.”

They lapsed into silence then, and Dean got the pensive, almost wistful look that he got whenever he thought about Lisa and Ben. He never talked about them, but Cas had begun to recognise the signs if conversation strayed too close to the idea of a normal life. Not that Cas believed Dean wanted that life back, in fact he’d said it wasn’t for him on more than one occasion, but he understood that there was an inherent appeal to it.

“Are you sure this is a good plan?” Cas asked after a moment. His voice came out more tentative than he would have liked.

Dean swung his head around to glare at him. “I never said it was a good plan.”

“No, but Dean, even if you win—”

“I know.”

“Sam or I could—”

“No,” Dean interrupted firmly, only his eyes betraying his anxiety. “You couldn’t.” He quirked his lips up a little then, and his eyes turned kind. “But thanks anyway.”

At that moment, Sam and Rowena began to head in their direction, faces grim and determined.

“We think we know a way in,” Sam said when he reached them. “Rowena’s got a spell she thinks could help recreate a key. Though we’ll probably have to localise it to the front door only, there are too many other protective spells to try unlocking the whole thing.”

“Great,” Dean said, sliding off the Charger. “What do you need?”

“A little of your mechanical expertise,” Rowena said, holding up what looked like an irregular metal disc. “I have the original key metal and everything else we need is pretty simple. You’re lucky we found Isla’s place or I’d have been out of hazel bark.”

Xxx

It didn’t take them long to put the spell together in the end. A brass bowl, some burning stick that smelled like patchouli and some mush that probably contained hazel bark. Rowena wrapped the melted metal in the mush, said a few words, her eyes glowing purple, and then she tilted the bowl towards Sam, who took a piece of silk and carefully wiped the mush from what was now a key, identical to the one that had melted.

Before he gave the key to Dean though, he pulled him to one side and Dean forced himself to roll his eyes, because that was what Sam would expect him to do if he was actually feeling as confident as he’d pretended to be when he first told Sam about this stupid plan.

“Are you sure you can handle this?” Sam muttered earnestly. “I know this is gonna be a lot to handle.”

“I’m fine.” Dean said, ignoring the heat in his face. “You and Cas are both worrying for nothing. I’m not some delicate damsel, okay? I’ve got this. Now give me a blade.”

“You’ve got a gun.”

Dean shook his head. “I need a blade, Sam. A long one if you can find it.”

“We’re only worrying because we care.” Sam said patiently, walking over to where he left the duffle and rooting through it for a few moments before producing a long iron knife with a wooden hilt. “And we’ll be here for you after, okay? And Cas will have your back in there.”

Dean managed a smile then, taking the knife and inspecting it. It wasn’t ideal, but it would do. “Yeah,” he said, clapping his brother on the arm. “Cas has got my back.”

That thought alone was enough to make him take the key and fit it into the door, warm him as he turned it. Cas stood at his shoulder, clutching his angel blade, his expression tight. Dean just beamed at him, fondly registering the look of surprise on his face as he pulled open the heavy iron door with a familiar screech that made him wince. Cas had his back. Cas was here, he was alive, and he still cared enough to follow Dean into Hell for a second time.

Dean took a deep breath and stepped through the door.

Xxx

It was the smell that hit him first. The tang of rust and copper, stale air and rot. He could have been walking into a crime scene, it shouldn’t be a smell that he ever associated with his own home. He made sure his steps were slow, deliberate. Cas stayed by the door, though he was fiddling with the blade in his hands and looked very much like he would rather advance with Dean. Dean tipped him a nod and made his way down the stairs. He wasn’t trying to move quietly. Chances were the thing had already heard the door and would be on its way to investigate.

With each step down he felt his posture changing, he rolled his shoulders back, let his head tip to the side, made his strides a little shorter, and he felt his face contort as he sank into the red space at the back of his mind, the one he never liked to look at, the one that knew Alastair.

He hit the bottom stair and impassively surveyed the mess. Young Sam’s body was still there, bits of him anyway. He inhaled deeply and found that the smell no longer repulsed him the way it had when he’d opened the door. The blood and other gore was dry now, soaked into the cement floor. A small part of him was disgusted, but the rest of him now relished the destruction. He didn’t glance back up to the balcony where the angel waited. He wasn’t here to kill the angel, but he itched to. Instead he had other important work to do, a little lesson to teach. He continued walking, entering the dark corridor that led to the rest of the bunker, listening intently for any sign of his prey.

After a moment, he heard the scrape of metal and a high bubble of laughter accompanying the slow tread of bare feet on tile.

“Oh Deeeeeaaan,” he called. His voice echoed back to him and he was surprised that he was surprised by how nasal it sounded, how cruel. He shook off that thought and noted how the footsteps had stopped, how the giggle had cut off. Dean tapped the point of his knife against the wall as he walked, not dragging it the way his other self preferred, but a bright, pleasing ringing sound, sharp and deliberate. “I know you’re not trying to hide from me, Dean. Surely you know better than that by now.”

The footsteps resumed, though they sounded more reluctant; no longer the regular, slow, stalking pace, they were faltering, unsure. Dean smiled. Feeling his lips twist in a way that was both unfamiliar and felt completely normal.

Dean rounded the next corner and there it was. It flinched at the sight of Dean, and then made a confused sound. It must be difficult to speak with vocal chords exposed to the air, Dean supposed, his grin widening.

“Don’t you remember this face?” He asked mockingly. “I got it especially for you.”

The other Dean couldn’t look at his face for long, its one working eye darting to it and then away in submission.

“Good pet.” Dean purred. “I’m glad you remember at least some of the rules.” He looked down towards the blade hanging limply from his other self’s fingers. It went clattering to the floor. “Follow me.”

Without another glance, Dean resumed walking, past the Hell-creature, in the direction of the dungeon. He didn’t check to see if it followed, he knew that it would. The plan was to take it towards the dungeon where it could be more easily contained, though the plan now seemed distant and unimportant.

He spent the short walk contemplating all the fun things he could do when they got there. He had a knife after all and he considered himself a creative sort. His pet had come a long way with regard to pain, but seemed unable to appreciate the nuances of true suffering. It was happy enough to copy what Alastair showed it, but had yet to develop its own personal flair. He smiled happily at the thought. It was the most promising of all his pets though, and he was certain that when it came, the result would be a work of art. Perhaps today would be the day.

“I have big plans for you.” He told the thing trailing behind him without turning to look at it. “So many fun things to teach, but so little canvas left to paint,” he sent a look of displeasure over his shoulder then, as though he could make the flapping skin seal back together just by looking at it. Which, honestly, it was frustrating that he couldn’t. There was a sound similar to a whimper from the toy. Then again, an already marred surface lent itself to interesting textures, ones that Dean couldn’t wait to dig his fingers into. They itched already and he tapped his blade against the wall again to alleviate a little of the compulsion. He had to wait until they got to the dungeon. Didn’t he?

_Why?_

Why indeed? It would be _much_ more fun to play here. With no more thought to it than that, he spun, grabbed his toy by the open throat and pushed it against the wall. Its hands didn’t even come up to claw at him, and something that was akin to both fear and excitement shot through its eye. Good. It had learned.

He had the knife up and trailing along an existing gash in seconds, carving the existing mark into a new shape. Whatever sounds emerged sounded clean and bounced back wonderfully from the tile, sounding more like music that they would in the concrete block they’d been heading for. Blood trickled from the blade and onto his fingers, soothing the itch, and he closed his eyes, letting out a breath of ecstasy right in his toy’s face. He leaned his head in and licked the fresh blood directly from the cut.

“Mmm...” he moaned. “Now ain’t that sweet? I saw that mess you left back there,” he gestured with the knife. “I’ll bet that kid was terrified wasn’t he? His own brother was the one slicing him up. I bet he shit his pants. He was so scared of you wasn’t he? Hmm? I’m talking to you, Dean.”

“Y-yes.” It rasped, causing a new pulse of dark blood to bubble up around the vocal chords and spill over.

“Yes indeed. Hmm... And now look at you. Look at you, scared of a widdle knife and your own face. I do love seeing the pecking order in action. Fascinating stuff.” He drew another pattern with his blade. To its credit it didn’t even flinch. Honestly, he knew that by this point there was very little he could do to make those pretty screams reappear, the ones that had been so common back when Dean Winchester had first found his way onto the rack. But he relished the thought of trying all the same. He did like a challenge.

Before he could properly begin however, there was the barely audible rustle of clothing from off to his left.

“You’re interrupting playtime,” he said, not even bothering to turn. All his focus was on the creature before him, and how he could draw out more pretty sounds. He took the point of his knife and dug it around in the open throat. He was careful not to slice through the vocal chords, he wanted sounds after all, but surely there was a nerve or two remaining. He felt the creature’s breath get heavy and wet on his face, from terror or anticipation he wasn’t sure. It began to tremble. Dean only smiled wider.

“Dean,” came a voice. The angel’s voice. Ugh. He rolled his head to look over at where that trenchcoat-wrapped annoyance stood, far away, at the very end of the corridor.

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll get to you,” he hissed. “I’ll have your wings pinned to a cork-board soon enough. They might as well be used for _something_ after all.”

Before he could turn his attention away, something about the angel’s expression, even at that distance, caught him. There was horror in the angel’s eyes— _Cas’ eyes_ —and a fear that he was pretty sure wasn’t due to his threat. Just like that, the illusion shattered and he was just Dean again, holding onto a monstrous version of himself, his knife in its throat. He pulled back, his concentration gone, and with a flash of recognition in the thing’s working eye, its hands came up and wrested the weapon away from him easily.

Dean reeled back against the opposite wall, his head swimming with darkness he was now trying to bat away. He’d let himself fall too deep, let himself get drunk on the power and malice. For a while there, he had _been_ Alastair, not just playing at it.

He gasped as a hand wrapped around his own throat, a burbling screech sounding in his ears and his instincts came back to him. He struggled and barely managed to pull the thing’s hand away. Once free he ducked and swung a leg out, trying to send it crashing to the ground as Cas ran forward, angel blade in hand.

It took the impact to its shin without moving, its sense of self-preservation long gone, despite Dean being pretty sure that he splintered bone. It just leered down at him, death in its eye, the other still dangling obscenely from the socket. Dean was almost level with it, and the sight made him want to throw up. Then it swung around as the thing turned, catching the blade in the remaining meat of its arm without flinching, and brought down its other hand with the clear aim to shatter Cas’ elbow. Cas pulled back at the last second with a cry, leaving the blade, and the creature pulled it from its flesh and threw it over its shoulder. It clattered on the tile at the other end of the hallway.

Dean felt his heart sink as he watched it land, then he whipped his head back around just in time to see the creature knock Cas off balance and send him skidding along the floor in the other direction. Dean pushed himself to his feet and the thing turned back to him, it snarled at him, eye blazing with anger that it had been tricked, that it had shown fear to something lesser than Alastair.

Dean watched as the creature bent to pick up the knife it had taken from him and made a run for the angel blade. He made it four strides before a heavy foot managed to land on his and he fell forwards, scrambling to catch himself. He cracked his chin on the floor and chipping at least one tooth. A hand on his shoulder jerked him over onto his back and a knife pierced the flesh at his temple and dragged down towards his eye. He stilled, not wanting to jostle the blade, closed his eyes, and was grateful that at least he would die as himself.

Through his lids there was a sudden white flash and then the breath was knocked from him as something heavy hit his torso. He cracked an eye open and after blinking a few times to clear the spots there was Cas, slumped against the wall, panting hard. Dean rolled the body off him, shuddering, and wiped his sleeve across his head, probably smearing blood everywhere but at least it got rid of the horrible tickling feeling as it dripped from the cut.

“Thanks, man.”

Cas glanced up at him, raised a hand and slumped further down the wall until he was practically sitting, still trying hard to get his breath back, which was concerning because, you know, angels don’t usually need to breathe. He remembered what Sam had told him about the rumpled bedsheets back in Cope and how Dylan had seen him eating.

“It’s true isn’t it?” He asked, skirting around the body to kneel at Cas’ side. “You really are losing your powers.”

Cas nodded without meeting his eyes.

Dean waited until his breathing had begun to regulate before he let out his burst of anger. “Dammit Cas! Why didn’t you tell us? Or at least tell Sam if you were pissed at me?”

“It didn’t come up in conversation.” Cas said, glaring back. “Besides, what difference does it make? You have never had powers but that hasn’t stopped you from doing what needs to be done.”

“That’s not the point!” Dean argued. “Knowing how to use what you’ve got isn’t the same as losing half of what you had. If we’re in a fight and we think you can just zap us out if things get hairy, that changes how we fight. We need to know your limits Cas, and you need to know them too. How much juice did you just use up smiting that thing?” His throat seized in sudden panic as he noticed sweat beading on Cas’ brow, the still heavy sound of his breaths, the tremble in his hands.

Confirming his worst suspicions, Cas spoke. “All of it,” he said.

“All of it.” Dean nodded and then straightened his legs to stand before reaching out a hand to help Cas up too. “Well that’s just peachy isn’t it?”

“I can probably still...” Cas said, raising two fingers to Dean’s forehead, but Dean ducked out of the way before he could make contact.

“Don’t you freaking dare,” he warned, watching the way that Cas seemed to be leaning most of his weight against the wall. “You can hardly stand. You shouldn’t have wasted that shit on me.”

“If I hadn’t, you’d be dead.” Cas snapped, pushing himself away from the wall.

Dean just made a face in response and turned to look at the corpse of his Hell-self. For some reason he felt sadness ball in his chest as he stared down at it, and something like grief. He swallowed hard.

“This was how you first saw me,” he said, taking in the ragged lines of skin, the exposed muscle and bone, and that one, horrific eye still tethered to the socket by a string of matter. “How could you see that, and still think I was worth saving.”

“I didn’t,” Cas said bluntly, coming to stand next to him. “I didn’t think much of anything at that time that wasn’t about completing my mission. Though I did… wonder. Very few souls make it to the point you did, Dean. Most become demons long before that. I guessed that there must be a resilience in you and I found myself curious.”

Dean glanced over to see a fond look on Cas’ face as he kept talking. “It wasn’t until after you were returned to Earth that I learned just how worthy you were.”

“Do—” Dean began, then he wet his lips. “Do you still think that?” he asked. “Even after… you know… everything.”

Cas turned to him then, his expression one of such openness that Dean felt his breath catch. “I do.”

Dean exhaled, and a heaviness that he hadn’t realised had been tight around him dissipated with the breath.

“And do you believe yet that good things do happen?” Cas asked. The question was light, teasing, as though Cas was expecting him to echo his past words and muster up a grin, or make a joke. But Dean was too raw for levity. Alastair still felt too close. But Cas was closer, and he at least was alive.

“You’re here.” He said, and the honesty in his voice scared him even as he was speaking. “I’d call that a good thing.”

Cas’ smile was a small one, surprised but genuine. “Even without my grace?”

Dean huffed a laugh. “Cas, your grace doesn’t even make the top ten list of why I like having you around.”

“Oh?” Cas said, eyebrows raised, the spark of a challenge in his eyes.

“Yeah. I— I missed you, buddy.”

“We didn’t exactly part on the best of terms.” Cas said, looking away. “I’m still angry, Dean.”

“I get that.” Dean said quietly. “I know you said you forgive me, but...”

“That doesn’t fix everything.” Cas finished. “I know.”

They were quiet for a moment, and Dean watched Cas as he stared down at the body on the floor. His face looked drawn and Dean thought that he was probably exhausted. If he was human for the time being he could probably use a hot meal too, and a shower.

He got a sudden mental image of Cas in the morning, grumpy, with his hair a wild mess and his voice rough from sleep, and he felt a pang of guilt that he didn’t actually hate the idea of a human Cas as much as Cas probably hated the idea of being human.

“We should probably go get the others,” he said, turning to make his way back to the door. “Maybe Rowena’s got a spell that’ll make cleaning up go easier.”

“I was terrified when I saw you holding the knife to it,” Cas said instead, the strange quality to his voice drawing Dean back into his orbit. “Pretending to be _him_. I looked in your eyes and I was so scared that you weren’t pretending.”

“I wasn’t,” Dean replied, shame bubbling acidic in his gut. “A part of me has been him ever since Hell. I—uh—thanks for snapping me out of it.” He didn’t say that he’d been afraid of that part of him for as long as he could remember, avoided acknowledging it, burying it as deep as he possibly could, almost certain that even to think about it would drag him back into the Pit and never let him out. He also didn’t say how some of that fear was gone now. Alastair was still a part of him, yes, but he had just proven that it didn’t control him. He _could_ break out. He wasn’t lost. There were other parts to him that were stronger: his connection to life, to will, to the people he loved, was stronger than Alastair could ever be.

That feeling lay like a balm over his anxious edges, smoothing them into something that felt more himself than he had been in weeks. Cas looked at him curiously and Dean wondered how much of his inner journey he had guessed from whatever expression was on his face. Probably more than he would ever let on. Cas was good like that.

“No matter how long I am around humans, they keep on surprising me.” Cas said, a hint of pride in his voice that Dean wanted to snatch from the air and cradle to his chest. “And you in particular.”

“Oh, because you’re so predictable,” Dean teased. “The angel so rebellious that Heaven gave up on trying to figure you out.”

“When you put it like that I suppose we do seem rather well-matched.”

“Yeah. I guess we are, aren’t we?”

Dean felt his stomach begin to churn, felt himself begin to sweat, the way he always did when a conversation with Cas turned on a dime and suddenly all he could think about were his overwhelming _feelings_ and how they were threatening to burst out of his mouth and ruin everything.

“I thought you were dead,” Dean said, despite his better judgement. His every instinct screamed at him to _shut up!_ “I thought that everything broken between us would stay broken. I thought that you were gone and I would never get the chance to fix it, to say everything that needs to be said. I can’t feel that again, man. I was—” He shook his head, unable to say in words how the despair had gripped him, how the secret hope that he had carried around inside him for a future that he never let himself think about, that he had been terrified of wanting, had been snuffed out. He didn’t know how to say those things.

“What needs to be said?” Cas asked. A simple question loaded with so much more. There was potential in that question; for something beautiful or for the end of something beautiful, Dean didn’t know. But he looked at Cas, felt his faith ignite, and took the leap.

“That I love you.”

Cas’ expression changed from soft to stunned in the time it took for Dean to blink. His lips moved but he didn’t say anything. Dean saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. When he opened his mouth wider, Dean was certain words were coming, a _response_ was coming, and he panicked.

“I know it doesn’t change anything,” he said quickly. “Everything that was fucked before is still fucked. And it doesn’t have to, y’know, even be a thing if you don’t—anyway. I had to say it, and now that it’s said I feel like an idiot.” He rubbed a hand along the back of his neck and it did nothing to calm him. He took a step back and twisted on the balls of his feet to face the opposite direction. “Whatever, forget it, let’s go give Sam the all-clear.”

“Dean.”

A hand, warm and a little damp encircled his wrist and Dean stopped mid-step to memorise the feel of it. He thought he’d never feel it again, the electricity humming beneath his skin that had nothing to do with Cas’ grace and everything to do with the fact that Cas was touching him. Then, instead of letting go now that he had Dean’s attention, or walking in front of him to insist on eye contact and a stern conversation, Dean felt Cas’ fingers gently slide down his wrist until they were palm to palm. Then Cas’ fingers slid between his, curled up and locked there.

“I love you too.” Dean heard. The voice as soft as a breeze. He heard the tread of a footstep, then a second, and then a weight landed lightly on his shoulder blade. Hair tickled the nape of his neck and he was pretty sure that the weight was Cas’ forehead. His heart squeezed at the casual gesture, something so intimate made all the more so by who they were. Cas only stayed there a moment, then he took a few more steps until he stood at Dean’s side. Dean dared a glance and tightened his grip on Cas’ hand. Cas eyes crinkled at the edges with a smile that didn’t his his mouth but was more precious for it.

“You’re right that this doesn’t fix anything.” Cas said. “But it feels right. And maybe the rest will come.”

“Yeah,” Dean said breathlessly. He’d be lying if he said that he wasn’t completely in awe of Cas at that moment. Out of all of them he had lost the most, he had more right than any to retreat into cynicism. Instead he was hopeful, bright, resplendent with determination.

Overcome with the love bursting in his core he stepped to face Cas completely, bringing his other hand up to gently frame his neck. Then, slowly, relishing each delicious inch, he leaned in and fit his lips to Cas’.

It wasn’t fireworks, or butterflies, or any of the other clichés found in books and TV. No, it was just… nice. It felt like something agitated settled inside him. The kiss deepened and he felt passion, yes, lust, of course, but mostly he just felt happy and warm and loved.

He drew back and smiled at the pink dusting Cas’ cheeks. He was pretty sure he was wearing a matching blush because Cas’ answering smile was sweet, and he let himself believe that Cas had just felt the same thing he had. He let his hand fall from Cas’ neck but still held tightly to his hand. Without speaking, the two of them headed towards the door of the bunker to fetch the others.

When they walked out, hands still clasped, Rowena let out a delighted laugh and clapped her hands together. Sam took a little longer to notice, but then his worried gaze narrowed in at where there hands joined and his face lit up.

“Son of a bitch, you actually did it.” He muttered before striding forwards to pull Dean into a hug. “I’m proud of you man.”

Dean just shoved him away with a casual, “Jerk,” but inside his stomach did a somersault or two. Then Sam did the same for a flustered Cas and whispered something to him too. He couldn’t catch it, but when they separated Cas nodded and blushed even deeper.

They headed inside and the air was one of a definite high. They had reclaimed their home and their chance at finding whatever object or book that young Sam had mentioned. They still had a lot of cleaning up to do, literally and figuratively, a lot of conversations to have, and more strategising than Dean could think about before his head began to spin. But for now they had a win, and they had hope, and they had each other. Dean watched with a smile as Sam sent a yawning Cas to bed and then he surprised himself with a thought: They would be okay. Maybe not immediately, maybe not for a while, but they would work this with the dogged determination and skill that they brought to every case and every big bad that they had ever faced. Chuck would lose because they would beat him. Chuck was trying to end their story, but Dean had a feeling that Team Free Will still had a lot of living yet to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I am unsure if the wonderful art is showing or not, [here is a link to the masterpost of all four pieces](https://tibbinswrites.tumblr.com/post/627058230150955008/love-nakamura-i-was-able-to-make-art-for-the)


End file.
